Jobs Bill, Cloture, Kabuki

So the Senate passed a jobs bill today by a vote of 70-28.
In policy terms, this isn’t big news. The CBO estimates the bill will cost some $15 billion, a fortune to you and I, but a pittance in Washington terms. In any case, the moneys allocated pale in comparison to the $500-600 billion worth of stimulus which has yet to be spent. Moreover, it’s not clear that the legislation will do much to improve the overall unemployment picture. The centerpiece of the bill is a $1000 tax break for businesses for every  new hire. This sounds like reasonable policy, and will clearly effect hires at the margin, but the simple fact remains that a thousand dollars is not a great deal of money, all things considered. Considering that the average  income in 2009 was around $40,000 for a full-time worker, it’s hard to imagine that many new jobs will be created by what amounts to a “first six days free” promotion. At the same time, businesses potentially face many times these cost in under the Democratic agenda. This regulatory uncertainty fosters lower unemployment, as firms wait to see what the cost of labor will become. If Congress were really dedicated to reducing costs of hires, they’d drop health care, financial reform, and cap and trade.
Still, I’m not particularly interested in these partisan arguments. The more fascinating component of today’s vote was its lopsidedness. Over the past year, Democrats have struggled to attract Republican votes on just about every issue, be it health-care, financial regulation, even innocuous (though bloated) department appropriations. Yet the final vote picked up 13 Republicans, over a quarter of the caucus. Their motivation was strong polls–Quinnipac shows a support/oppose ratio of 72/22 for a $100 billion bill. The political calculations would  seem to mandate grudging Republican support, even if the ideological case is a little less clear.
Realty proves a little bit tricker. Just yesterday, the cloture vote passed on a narrower 62-30 margin. Six Republicans: Roger Wicker and Thad Cochran of Mississippi, Lamar Alexander (TN), James Inhofe (OK), George LeMieux (FL), and Lisa Murkowski (AK) all switched their votes from no on cloture to yes on final passage. In addition, Richard Burr (NC) and Orrin Hatch (UT) sat out the cloture  vote but gave their ayes to the bill.
Substantively, these positions are functionally incompatible. In the traditions of the modern senate, a vote for cloture is a vote for the underlying bill. Senate procedure is not always the easiest to explain–pace John Kerry–but the public seemed to be growing more aware of cloture’s effects on the legislative process. Indeed, the Republican strategy of uniformly obstructing cloture depended on their members not being able to vote for cloture, then against the underlying bill. That so many defected is sign that members still believe they can have it both ways: supporting the leadership on the vote that counts, and voting for the popular thing on the vote for the TV ads.
Even so, there’s a pretty major difference between can and should. Voting against cloture but for the bill may be politically convenient, and even a politically plausible contortion. Still, it’s not the tactic of a governing party–for at the end of the day, to govern, one has to pick a side and stick to it. Today’s vote may not be terrific for those who put faith in an informed electorate, increasingly savvy to political tricks. It’s worse for Republicans, if they are to retake the Senate this November.
Photo credit: Library of Congress flickr stream