US senate vote on stimulus stalls

The president wants congress to pass the $900bn stimulus plan quickly [AFP] The US senate has failed to vote on Barack Obama's $900bn economic stimulus plan despite the president's call to move quickly to avoid a "catastrophe" as unemployment figures rose to the highest levels since 1982. "The time for talk is over, the time for action is now," Obama said in Washington on Thursday. "I am calling on the members of congress, Democrats and Republicans, to rise to this moment." But after spending hours trying to hammer out a bipartisan compromise on the bill which aims to revive the struggling US economy, senators halted work late on Thursday and were to resume debate on Friday. The recess dashed hopes of a vote on the senate's version of the bill which the House of Representatives, the other chamber of congress, passed last week. Republican complaints Republicans complain that the bill is too large, contains insufficient tax cuts and is filled with spending on unnecessary projects which will not immediately create jobs. In depth Q&A: US stimulus plan Global cost of the US stimulus plan Later on Thursday Obama decried what he described as the "petty politics" and "false theories" of the plan's critics, saying the time had come to show "leadership" over the economic crisis. Rob Reynolds, Al Jazeera's senior Washington correspondent, said the Obama administration had gone on the offensive over the economy in recent days to counter Republican criticisms of the stimulus package, which Obama has said will create three million jobs. The severity of the economic crisis was underlined by new figures on Thursday showing the number of US workers filing new jobless benefit claims rose to 626,000 in the last week of January - the highest level since the end of October 1982. The US president had written earlier on Thursday in an editorial in the Washington Post newspaper that the economy was in the worst state since the Great Depression of the 1930s. "Millions of jobs that Americans relied on just a year ago are gone - millions more of the nest eggs families worked so hard to build have vanished," Obama wrote in the newspaper. Bonus ban The senate did pass one amendment to the bill on Thursday, voting to ban bonuses for top executives at banks or companies receiving taxpayer money from the previous $700bn bailout fund passed last year. Obama said the economy was in the worst state since the Great Depression [AFP] On Wednesday, the senate also voted to soften a "Buy American" plan in the bill after Obama expressed concern that it could spark a trade war. Senators approved an amendment requiring the Buy American provisions be "applied in a manner consistent with US obligations under international agreements". The change was designed to reassure Canada, Mexico, the European Union and other major trading partners that they would be exempt from a requirement in the bill that all public works projects funded by the stimulus package use only US-made iron, steel and manufactured goods. The House of Representatives had passed a nearly identical "Buy America" provision without such a guarantee. The US economy is in a recession following months of market turmoil sparked by the subprime mortgage crisis, tight credit conditions and slumping global markets.