Last month, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid surprised his colleagues by scrapping an $85 billion jobs bill written by Montana Democratic Sen. Max Baucus and Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley and replacing it with a much smaller version. The theory was that Reid planned on forcing Republicans to make a series of votes on several popular provisions in the bill to prevent “GOP foot dragging.”
So much for that theory. Reid and Baucus unveiled a new $150 billion jobs bill Monday:
Three weeks ago, Reid surprised members of both parties by pulling an $85 billion jobs measure that had been negotiated by Baucus and Finance committee ranking member Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), a measure that was likely to earn the backing of several Republican senators.
Reid’s allies said at the time that the Nevadan had concerns with the size of the package and its abundance of tax breaks, but the new bill released by Reid and Baucus Monday is much bigger than the package Reid previously nixed, containing nearly all of the same provisions plus additional items.