The Senate has rejected President Obama’s $447 billion job-creation package. The combination of tax cuts and new government spending failed by a 50-49 vote, short of the 60 needed to avoid a Republican filibuster. Two Democrats, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Jon Tester of Montana, joined Republicans in opposition. Speaking on MSNBC, independent Sen. Bernie Sanders criticized Republicans for blocking the bill.

Sen. Bernie Sanders: “When we have an economy today which is in as bad a shape as any time since the Great Depression, it is literally beyond my comprehension how we could not get one Republican vote in order to put millions of people back to work. In my view, we’ve got to go a lot further, to be honest with you, than the President proposed. I would put a lot more money into infrastructure, into energy, and I think we can create a whole lot of jobs doing that.”

The vote comes just after a new congressional study found the jobs bill could be fully paid for by a proposed new tax on millionaires. The White House and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid say they will now seek to have the bill’s provisions voted on separately.