The Stimulus Bill

[Dr. Shane]

Obama ratchets up the rhetoric

Quote:

President Barack Obama's soft-sell pitches to Republicans haven't gotten him very far on his economic stimulus plan, so he's resorting to a sharper tone that is at odds with his vow to make Washington less partisan.

Stopping just short of a take-it-or-leave-it stand, Obama has mocked the notion that a stimulus bill shouldn't include huge spending. He's also defended earmarks as inevitable in such a package. And he's pointedly reminded Republicans about who won the November election.

The heightened rhetoric reflects White House frustration that Obama's earlier efforts, which included high-profile visits to House and Senate Republicans last month, yielded not a single House GOP vote for the legislation. In the Senate, Obama and his allies were battling Friday for just a handful of Republican votes to avoid a bill-stopping filibuster.

Obviously Obama isn't uniting anyone in Washington. That is not a big surprise to me. Since he and the Democrats won the election in November and are so anxious to remind everyone of that, why do they want any Republicans to vote for their legislation? They don't need the Republicans. They can pass it without Republicans and take all the credit for themselves.

Now I am not against the stimulus package. In fact, from listening to our local Congressmen, it sounds like the package will help our area out a lot with specific benefits for my industry. So I think if passed it will work out well for my company. So I am not "against" Obama on this. I am just pointing out some obvious issues with the legislation and the process of passing it.

House and Senate divided over U.S. stimulus bills

Quote:

The price tag for the Senate plan is only slightly more than the $820 billion cost of the measure adopted by the House. Both plans are intended to blunt the recession with a combination of tax cuts and government spending on public works and other programs to create more than three million job...

The Senate plan, reached in an agreement late Friday between Democrats and three moderate Republicans, focuses somewhat more heavily on tax cuts, provides far less generous health care subsidies for the unemployed and lowers a proposed increase in food stamps...

The negotiations in Congress will test whether Democrats, who say they won a mandate in November to pursue their goals, are willing to give up some favored long-term policy initiatives to win over more Republican votes...

As a result, the Senate met for a rare Saturday session, and Republicans delivered some of their harshest criticism of Obama since he took office, suggesting that he was pressing Congress to act irresponsibly by warning of imminent catastrophe.

"In discussing with the American people his approach to the stimulus of our economy, he has first really used some dangerous words," said Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the No. 2 Republican. Kyl added, "It seems to me that the president is rather casually throwing out some careless language."

...Other trims the Senate settled on eliminated $19.5 billion in construction aid for schools and colleges and sliced proposed new aid for the Head Start early childhood program by $1 billion.

...Many of the education programs in the bill are top priorities of the powerful chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Representative David Obey, Democrat of Wisconsin.

Cutting the school construction would definitely hurt my industry. After the Senate version is passed there will be a conference committee made up of members of both the House and the Senate. Out of the conference committee will come a bill that will go back to both houses of Congress to be voted on.

[carolaa]

Well, I do find it interesting that the Republicans backed a stimulus under GW for about the same amount of money (with few strings attached!) but now they are getting all self righteous about what a bad idea this better version is.

[Dr. Shane]

The Republicans didn't back the banking bailout. In fact it failed and Nancyt Pelosi got made at the Republicans for not supporting it in large enough numbers. They had to vote over to get enough votes to pass it.

[CyberGuy]

Quote:

Obviously Obama isn't uniting anyone in Washington. That is not a big surprise to me. Since he and the Democrats won the election in November and are so anxious to remind everyone of that, why do they want any Republicans to vote for their legislation? They don't need the Republicans. They can pass it without Republicans and take all the credit for themselves.

The democrats need 60 votes to end debate in the senate. The democrats only have 58 votes so they need two or three republicans to side with them to end debate and take a vote. So if the republicans stands together they can stall any vote indefinitly in a fillibuster or endless debate until the topic is tabled for the sake of moving on to other less controversal topics. So compromise is necessary to appease at least two or three republican votes to come to the democrate side.

[carolaa]

The Republicans didn't back the banking bailout. In fact it failed and Nancyt Pelosi got made at the Republicans for not supporting it in large enough numbers. They had to vote over to get enough votes to pass it.

As I recall, it failed in the House, but then the Senate illegally took it on and voted it and put pressure on House reps to finally pass it.

[Dr. Shane]

And the reason it failed is because the Republicans were not on board. Looking back, it doesn't seem to have done much. Has it?

[CyberGuy]

And the reason it failed is because the Republicans were not on board. Looking back, it doesn't seem to have done much. Has it?

Ok there are two stimulus bills. The one that failed in the house the FIRST time was the one passed when Bush was president back in October. That failed the first time and passed the senate and later the house the second try.

The current Stimulus plan passed the house with not one republican vote and now the senate republicans are cutting the bills size by over 100 billion. Cutting aid to the states and other pork projects and more aid to the tax payers. So far they are still discussing it. The house wants their Pork projects back in and the senate is saying we cannot get that passed unless you accept this whittled down plan. I like the whittled down one better. Bad idea with all that pork projects in it.

Now Obama is going to the internet and stumping trying to get the taxpayers to write their congressmen and senators to pressure them to back the stimulus plan regardless of the cost. Obama may lose some of his popularity very quickly if people see him as a partisan player in Washington.

[John317]

Read it for yourselves--

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/24/house-stimulus-bill-full_n_160569.html

Only a small part of the bill goes to helping make jobs. Most of it is "pork," and will not help the economy at all but probably make it worse.

[Dr. Shane]

I don't see a problem with pork projects when we are trying to stimulate the economy. These projects should inject money into the economy. As long as the money doesn't go and sit in someone's bank account, the will pass from hand to hand. Even pell grants and increasing food stamps will have a positive impact on the economy. More money going into our universities and super markets is going to have a stimulative effect.

That said, I do support the McCain Amendment. Once the recession is over all of these programs should have to get another look by Congress.