US News
US senators forge tentative compromise on stimulus plan (3rd Roundup)
By Chris Cermak Feb 7, 2009, 1:42 GMT
US President Barack Obama makes remarks to employees at the United States Department of Energy in Washington, D.C. USA, on 05 February 2009. US President Barack Obama has warned Congress that \'the time for talk is over\' on an economic stimulus bill. EPA/RON SACHS / POOL .
Washington - The US Senate appeared headed for a vote this weekend after reaching a compromise on a massive and unprecedented economic stimulus package to help pull the United States out of its worst recession in decades.
A bipartisan group of senators put forward a tentative deal late Friday on a 780-billion-dollar recovery plan. The compromise would strip some 150 billion dollars out of an earlier version of the legislation before the Senate.
'This compromise greatly improves the bill. It will help our economy recover from a dangerous recession,' said Senator Susan Collins, a moderate Republican who led the compromise negotiations throughout Friday.
Collins was one of three Republican senators expected to support the deal, which took on added urgency after a dismal unemployment report Friday provided further evidence of the deepening recession in the United States.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the top Democrat in the chamber, said that a vote could take place in a special session over the weekend. But some senators remained uncommitted until they had time to digest the compromise, and some haggling was still possible in the coming days.
A total of 60 votes are needed in the 100-member chamber to prevent opponents from using parliamentary manoeuvres to block legislation. The majority Democrats, who support the stimulus, hold 58 seats.
'I do believe we have to act, and I believe that, under the circumstances, this is the best we can do,' said Republican Senator Arlen Spector of Pennsylvania.
The recovery package would be the largest in US history. It includes about 300 billion dollars in tax cuts for middle and low- income workers and businesses. The majority of the measures authorizes massive injections of government spending into sectors including renewable energy, transportation, health care and education.
The House of Representatives last week passed an 819-billion- dollar version of the stimulus legislation strictly along party lines.
Both houses would still have to reconcile their differing versions over the next week. Democrats, who hold majorities in both houses, have promised to finalize the bill by February 13.
The deal came after a group of nearly 20 centrist Republican and Democratic senators met throughout recent days to work out a compromise that could squeeze the legislation through the chamber.
President Barack Obama, who has trumpeted the plan as vital to US recovery prospects, warned Friday that delay would be 'inexcusable and irresponsible' amid millions of US job losses and a deepening recession.
The US Labour Department said that 598,000 jobs were lost in January, the worst one-month decline since 1974. About 3.6 million jobs have now been shed since the US went into recession in December 2007.
'That's 3.6 million Americans who need our help,' Obama said at a White House event, where he signed an executive order creating a new bipartisan economic advisory board.
While Obama had originally hoped for a bipartisan stimulus plan, the president has shifted his rhetoric in recent days, chiding Republicans for insisting on a failed economic strategy that he says was rejected by US voters in the November general elections that brought him to power.
'The American people did not choose more of the same. They did not send us to Washington to get stuck in partisan posturing,' Obama said.
Amid the worst financial crisis the nation and world have faced in decades, Obama has warned that the economic crisis will turn into a 'catastrophe' if Congress does not quickly adopt the stimulus plan.
On Monday, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner plans to reveal details of a separate rescue plan for the financial sector.
Congressional offices have been inundated with calls from the general public on both sides of the stimulus argument. Most Republicans have held fast in their insistence that the package before the Senate contain more tax cuts and be significantly trimmed of what they deem wasteful spending.
'We will not support an aimless spending spree masquerading as a stimulus,' minority leader Mitch McConnell said on the floor of the Senate. 'We need to get a stimulus, but, more importantly, we need to get it right.'
Obama has said that the stimulus bill will save or create at least 3 million jobs over the next two years. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has projected it would create between 1.3 million and 3.9 million jobs by the end of 2010.
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Older Talkback
page: 1
...that still does not make you wrong...
How can anyone be so in love with their own words like SP?????
this bill would pass and money could start being used to prop up the economy if only the GOP (grand obstruction party) would get out of the way. Don't understand why they cannot get a couple of basis things. 1. They had control for most of 8 years and they failed, completely failed. and 2. They lost the last election and if they don't get out of the way they will loose the next one!
A bunch of losers who followed the worst President in history all the way to the bottom.
...how little you are getting for all this money, do you...
'Obama has said that the stimulus bill will save or create at least 3 million jobs over the next two years.'
Two years later ... poof! Right back to the beginning, except more debt and more welfare recipients with huge flat screen T.V.s.
The problem is fundamental 'hit the wall' global expansion and no amount of credit will solve that problem. But, mentally ill credit-holic addicts never 'get it', to them it is: 'all my problems will be solved with just one more credit application' (repeat over and over).
... the next 'credit application' will be two trillion dollars. The mentally ill credit-holic addicts never learn until they go bust.
....being a nutball does not, necessarily, make you wrong...sometimes.
Lance,I think you are repeating yourself a bit.It gets boring this mantra about credit spending .The world is a bit more sophisticated than that .
Nowadays a flat panel TV is no longer an indication for the financial status of the population .The poorest people are now able to buy these products.What is gtting more and more expensive are the prices for food and fuel .That is where the shoe is too tight .Time to redefine the symbols of wealth .
Maybe not, but being right about the wrong thing makes you both wrong.
This mere printing of money. The whole system is broke. It is broken. America will do worse under this well-intentioned negro.
Obama`s bananarama.
Este cretino negro tiene el cerebro financiero de un gusano nabo comido.
Para llamar este imbécil un presidente es una broma enorme.
...it really isn't that much more sophisticated than that.
Too much debt, especially when your leader will have difficulty generating tax receipts is a really bad idea. Most folks recognize this a buying debt they cannot pay off. Perhaps this is why public support for this bill is sinking, a laudible notion on the practicality of Americans.
This fools errand of a stimulus plant takes money that will be needed to rebuild the banking system, for some of the most ludicrous things, like golf club houses, and parking lots, etc., just things the gov't has no business financing.
We call it Pork.
Not exactly 'change you can believe in', not that we ever really did.
'... What is gtting more and more expensive are the prices for food and fuel ...'
If only the U.S. government had a welfare program for that alone.
They don't need a trillion dollars for food and fuel. They are proposing a trillion dollar debt-backed welfare system so people can 'jump start' the economy by buying consumer electronic items and fancy cars.
The new welfare citizen is not about food and fuel. They are a new breed of welfare-citizens hell bent on getting welfare checks so they can buying the latest gadgets.
The mentally ill credit-holic addict politicians are running full blast off of mentally ill credit-holic addict constituents. There are now enough mentally ill people so that they form a critical mass of self perpetuating debt spenders. Politicians make the drug, and their followers consume the drug of choice: credit and free money.
I expected more from this president.
lance and SP4 (dumb and dumber) is this bill is going to pass and there is not one thing you can do to stop it. That is what happens when you lose. Ha, ha!
'... this bill is going to pass and there is not one thing you can do to stop it. That is what happens when you lose. Ha, ha!'
I want it to pass. Your destiny awaits you. It is your destiny that will prove me right.
I can't wait for the welfare checks to start printing.
As they say: 'The proof is in the pudding', and without the bill passing and people getting welfare the facts would never take place and then there would be no proof.
So, pass the bill and lets get on with the show.
Da sun shahnes eest, da sun shahnes west, but ah noah ware da sun shahnes best.
What's two miles long and eats bananas? The job queue in Alabama.
Is it true that all welfare cheques for blacks are issued with a special banana coupon ?
New evidence has been found that proves beyond all doubt that Jesus was a black guy.
PS - SP4 AND LANCE, PLEASE GET MARRIED - YOU SURE WOULD MAKE A LOVING COUPLE OF QUEERS.
SP4 our red-necked Grand Wizard of the KKK and LANCE our Iranian-American Ayatollah are both right about everything that is wrong and both wrong about everything that is right.
The rest of the punters ? They are wrong about everything that is right and wrong about everything that is wrong.
But it all makes super comic reading. The proverbial Goon Show with Obama as cheer-leader.
'right about everything that is wrong and both wrong about everything that is right.'
Your thinking is obviously true.
For example: Genocide on a global scale, say mass killing one billion people creates a lot of suffering, but on the other hand it reduces the population and makes the earth more sustainable and allows more food and resources to those not killed.
Sooner or later you will have to take a stand and define what you stand for.
rather than whining about all the ills of the world, specifically the genocides, why don't you do something concrete to end it? Like go over there, where ever 'there' is, and wave your carrot at them. We'll see how long you last, before you get sliced and diced.
page: 1
poofFeb 7th, 2009 - 09:13:27
'Obama has said that the stimulus bill will save or create at least 3 million jobs over the next two years.'
In other news, Obama decides to invest in rising debt collection companies, since that's where the 3 million jobs will mostly be created. The remainder 297 million Americans will continue to be broke and SOL from joblessness. Have a nice day sucka.
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