President Brown loses his first vote

[Enrique]

How can Senators dare defy the Hero of Massachusetts?

Despite grim new deficit estimates, the Senate rejected efforts Tuesday to create a bipartisan commission empowered to force up-and-down votes in Congress on long-term steps to relieve the mounting debt facing the nation.

A majority of senators backed the measure on the 53-46 roll call but it still failed after falling seven votes short of the 60 required under prior agreement for passage.

President Barack Obama is now expected to step in and by executive order create his own commission, also designed to force action after the November elections. But the landscape ahead is clearly difficult given the economic outlook and raw politics seen in the Senate debate.

Not only Obama but also Scott Brown, the newly elected Massachusetts senator and Republican hero, had supported the commission idea, sponsored by Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) and his ranking Republican, New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg. But old guard elements in both parties resisted and it was ultimately doomed because top Republicans feared it would help Democrats extricate themselves from a difficult debt ceiling bill.



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