Majority Leader Harry Reid , D-Nev., offered a reduction to $780 billion, not including spending added to the bill in the Senate, according to a Democratic aide.
The Democratic leadership called the meeting in a Capitol building room to sell the new proposal to the broader caucus. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel was seen walking into the room. The legislation is the Obama administration’s top short-term priority.
Ben Nelson , D-Neb., and Collins had been leading the effort to salvage the bill (HR 1), with the hopes of possibly passing it Friday. The goal is to have 60 votes for the legislation to ward off procedural challenges.
Kent Conrad , D-N.D., hesitated to call the proposal a full-blown “agreement,” but said it had been “sufficiently fleshed out” to the point where Democrats “can have a caucus and discuss it.”
The contents of the proposal could change again, Conrad said, but he added that it was still possible to have a vote on final passage Friday night.
The prospects of a deal have seemed to seesaw throughout the day. Friday morning, Reid said he expected negotiations would produce something that could be voted on by the end of the day.
“This is a critical day for our country and this Congress,” he said.
But by mid-afternoon Collins emerged from a meeting with Reid and said she was just beginning to review an offer from the Democratic leader.
Asked how she felt, Collins said, “not as good as I felt earlier.”
Collins and Nelson have been trying to trim as much as $100 billion in spending from the bill, but they have had difficulty getting Republicans and Democrats to agree on which programs to cut.
Beyond that, every spending cut is likely to cause heartburn among liberals. Sen. Dianne Feinstein , D-Calif., raised the possibility she will vote against the bill if she thinks it would not create enough jobs. Feinstein was cosponsor of an amendment to boost infrastructure spending in the plan by $25 billion, which was blocked Tuesday.
Snowe, announced that she was working with leadership on making changes to the tax portion of the bill that could cut tens of billions of dollars from the bottom line.
One option on the table would trim the net-operating loss carryback provision, according to a Senate aide. As currently written, the bill would allow companies to apply current losses to up to five prior years of taxes paid and claim immediate refunds, up from two years in current law.
Nelson said Reid presented the negotiators with a proposal of cuts drawn up by the Appropriations Committee as a counter to the list he and Collins have been working on. He declined to say the size of the cut being proposed by the Appropriations Committee, but in a news release Snowe said leaders have told her it is $63 billion. Nelson said the final plan would cost less than $800 billion.
