After Senate Democrats failed to muster 60 votes to break a filibuster against a revised version of President Obama's jobs bill, the question is can lawmakers find any compromise economic growth plan to support this year?
The Senate vote was 50-49 to force a start to debate on the jobs bill; technically, there were 51 votes for that motion, but Sen. Harry Reid changed his vote to 'No' at the end, which will allow him to force a re-vote in coming days.
Along with Reid, two Democrats broke ranks and voted against the jobs bill, Sen. Jon Tester of Montana and Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska.
Several others came close to joining that duo, as Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia and Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia stayed with their party, though they expressed reservations about the bill's details, as did Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT).
Lieberman said he objected to the size of the $447 billion plan, arguing it "spends almost a half trillion dollars that we don't have."
Democrats held the vote open for over two hours to allow Sen. Jeanne Shaheen to fly back from New Hampshire to cast a vote for the plan, insuring that there would be a bare majority in favor of starting debate on the bill.
"Tonight’s vote is by no means the end of this fight," argued President Obama in a statement released after the vote, issued while he was raising money for his re- election in Orlando, Florida.
"And we will now work with Senator Reid to make sure that the individual proposals in this jobs bill get a vote as soon as possible," Obama added, foreshadowing what could be a difficult slog in the Senate.
“Today the Senate acted in a bipartisan manner to reject the President’s proposed tax increases on American job creators," said Speaker John Boehner.
"Now it’s time for both parties to work together and find common ground on removing government barriers to private-sector job growth," he added.
While the idea seems logical - pare the bill down to some essential items and approve them - the same partisan differences exist, as do the battle lines over how to pay for anything.
Republicans made clear with their united vote in the Senate that they are not ready to embrace any new taxes to pay for these job creation plans, while that is almost a cornerstone of any plan from Democrats and the White House.
Some of that work begins today in the House, where a GOP-led panel will examine the idea of new "infrastructure bank" to help spur road and bridge projects nationwide.
The idea has strong backing among Democrats, but has received a rather lukewarm assessment by Republicans, mainly because the Obama plan would set up a brand new bureaucracy to implement the plan.
Both sides are more than ready to score some political points against each other in coming days on this issue.
Whether anything gets done in the Congress is another issue.
