Feb. 10 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Senate has enough votes to pass an $838 billion economic stimulus package and clear the way for negotiations with the House to get a bill to President Barack Obama’s quickly.

While Obama is calling for bipartisanship, few Republicans are supporting the plan. Just three sided with Democrats yesterday on a key Senate vote on whether to shut down a Republican filibuster. The House passed its own stimulus package last month.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, urged his colleagues today to vote against the legislation.

“We’re taking an enormous risk -- an enormous risk -- with other people’s money,” said McConnell. “The president was right to call for a stimulus, but this bill misses the mark. It’s full of waste; we have no assurance it will create jobs or revive the economy. The only thing we know for sure is that it increases our debt.”

During a trip yesterday to Elkhart, Indiana, where unemployment reached 15.3 percent in December, Obama warned of dire consequences if Congress doesn’t act. He also held a nationally televised news conference last evening.

‘Full-Blown Crisis’

The economy faces a “full-blown crisis,” Obama said last night. “We can’t depend on government alone to create jobs or economic growth,” he said. “But at this particular moment, with the private sector so weakened by this recession, the federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back into life.”

Obama will continue pressuring Congress to act in a speech today in Fort Myers, Florida, which has been hit hard by the housing crisis.

Obama had once hoped to pass the stimulus plan in the Senate with 80 votes, which would require the support of half of the chamber’s Republicans. Last night he said that while he made a “series of overtures” to the party there have “been a lot of bad habits built up here in Washington and it’s going to take time to break down some of those bad habits.”

Senator Charles Schumer, the No. 3 Democrat, defended the bill today against Republican claims they were left out of negotiations.

‘Far Greater Failure’

“To pass a bill with 80 votes that would do nothing to help the average person would be a far greater failure than passing a bill with 61 votes that starts our economy moving again,” Schumer said. He said many Republicans would “never” vote for the bill unless it included much larger tax cuts.

The three Republicans voting yesterday to end debate on the Senate bill were Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. The vote was 61 to 36.

The House approved its $819 billion stimulus package last month; no Republicans voted for it.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office issued a revised estimate pegging the total cost of the Senate bill at $838 billion. Previously, lawmakers had estimated the cost at $827 billion.

The CBO also estimated the Senate plan would funnel about $655 billion into the economy by the end of 2010, about $40 billion less than under an earlier draft before the Senate. The House-backed package would pump $526 billion into the economy by the end of next year, according to the agency.

35 Percent

The CBO said the Senate plan includes $293 billion in tax cuts, about 35 percent of the total package.

The nonpartisan Pew Research Center for the People & the Press released a poll yesterday showing a bare majority of Americans, 51 percent, believe the stimulus plan is a good idea. The survey said reaction was divided along party lines with 63 percent of Republicans calling the plan a bad idea and 70 percent of Democrats saying it was a good one.

While the competing House and Senate plans are of similar size, they differ on several key points, which could lead to difficult negotiations between the two chambers.

The Senate plan includes more tax breaks, including a $70 billion cut in the alternative-minimum tax, a $35 billion break aimed at helping the housing industry and an $11 billion plan to let new car buyers write off the interest on their loans. The Senate bill, unlike the House measure, also calls for spending $17 billion to send $300 checks to retirees who wouldn’t be eligible for a proposed $500 payroll tax cut.

Aid to States

The Senate plan makes room for those changes in part by dropping $40 billion in proposed aid to state governments struggling to balance their budgets. The Senate legislation would also spend $20 billion less than the House on school construction, $4 billion less for food stamps and would offer a smaller subsidy to help the unemployed buy health insurance from their former employers.

The Senate plan aims to save $2 billion by reducing the number of people who would qualify for Obama’s $500 payroll tax cut. The bill would begin to phase out that break for individuals with adjusted gross incomes topping $70,000 rather than $75,000, as approved by the House.

The Senate bill includes restrictions on executive compensation. One provision requires companies taking money from the Treasury Department’s Troubled Asset Relief Program to repay the cash portion of bonuses topping $100,000 paid to employees for work last year.

To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Faler in Washington at bfaler@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: February 10, 2009 12:41 EST