With Thanksgiving recess fast approaching and a partisan stalemate over a stalled federal economic stimulus bill showing no signs of lifting, U.S. Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe pushed forward Thursday with a $75 billion compromise package.

“It may not reflect everyone’s first choice, but it’s clear neither side can get everything it wants,” Collins said in a Thursday statement. “Both sides will have to compromise to get a bill signed into law this year.”

The centrist compromise includes a 13-week unemployment extension, tax credits for the purchase of health insurance coverage as well as tax rate cuts for selected income levels.

The bipartisan plan, released Wednesday evening by three Republican and three Democratic senators, drew praise from Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, who noted it “moves away from a spending-only idea … and that’s a hopeful sign that there is a bipartisan basis for responding in a constructive way to the president’s call for action.”

In Bangor, Maine Democratic Party executive director Gwethalyn Phillips said the centrist compromise bill showed a “little movement in the right direction,” but fell far short in its effort to provide health insurance to displaced workers and make more displaced workers eligible for unemployment benefits.

Under the centrist plan, displaced workers would receive a 50 percent tax credit toward the purchase of Consolidated Omnibus Reconciliation Act health insurance.

The $73 billion Democratic plan, blocked Wednesday by Senate Republicans, would provide a 75 percent federal match for the costly COBRA policies – a $119 difference for monthly coverage for an eligible Maine family.

“That’s a pretty significant difference for people in Maine who are out of work and need health insurance,” Phillips said, saying that more than half of the 7 million out-of-work Americans do not qualify for unemployment and the vast majority cannot afford health coverage. “We just hope we can get closer to what’s needed.”

Thursday morning Phillips joined labor and women’s rights leaders to decry the $100 billion House Republican alternative, which would have returned $25 billion in total tax refunds to major corporations including IBM, Ford Motor Co. and General Electric.

“I’m sorry to say that while there’s plenty for corporations, there is very little for unemployed workers,” Maine AFL-CIO treasurer Ned McCann said. “It’s a mere fig leaf and our people are cold.”

Saying that there was “plenty of blame to go around” in the partisan standoff over the economic stimulus package, a Snowe spokesman said Thursday that Mane’s senior senator was hopeful the compromise could gain the needed support for passage.

“We think this is a welcome way to sidestep the partisan bickering,” Snowe spokesman Dave Lackey said Thursday. “This is designed to get beyond the blame and toward a consensus.”

Other lawmakers to sign onto the centrist compromise include Sens. John Breaux, D-La.; Zell Miller, D-Ga.; Ben Nelson, D-Neb. and George Voinovich, R-Ohio.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.