Democratic Senate works out deal to pass Stimulus, get more money to veterans

[Thorgrim]

Senate Democrats and Republicans have agreed to add rebates for 20 million senior citizens and 250,000 disabled veterans to a House-passed economic stimulus bill.

Senate Democrats, under pressure from party colleagues in the House, had agreed early to an economic rescue package that would add checks for Social Security retirees and disabled veterans but leave out extended jobless benefits and additional business subsidies.

The package would rush tax rebates of $500 for individuals and $1,000 for couples to most taxpayers and grant business tax cuts to revive the economy.

...

Supporters say sharing the rebates with seniors and disabled veterans will cost about $9 billion.

Senate hammers out tentative stimulus deal - Stocks & economy - MSNBC.com

All total it should be about $150 billion

Looks like Democrats have just scored another win...not only did they force the GOP to adopt major parts of THEIR plan for a stimulus, but the GOP stripped out other portions, so Democrats can take credit when people get their money, and blame the Republicans if it doesn't work for being too cheap

I love win-wins like this

[WickedLou9]

Go blue team!

[Thorgrim]

Elizabeth Dole broke with the GOP on the first version...she must have some bad polling from her campaign (shes up for re-election in 2008 but no big hitters have come to challenge her, however a state senator should be a decent challenge)...someone should poll that state again...

I wonder what the second vote is going to look like, is it going to be like the SCHIP where they get 2/3rds or wha?

[thewise1]

Glad to see rebates on taxes that were PAID.

Disgusted to see it where they were not paid.

[WickedLou9]

Originally Posted by thewise1

Glad to see rebates on taxes that were PAID.

Disgusted to see it where they were not paid.

Well it is a stimulus package, not a tax rebate package. It's primary purpose is to stimulate spending. So giving it to people with the lowest income will ensure that the money gets spent almost immediatly.

[thewise1]

Originally Posted by WickedLou9

Well it is a stimulus package, not a tax rebate package. It's primary purpose is to stimulate spending. So giving it to people with the lowest income will ensure that the money gets spent almost immediatly.

I'm well aware of the logic of the situation and how it's supposed to work.

I also know that one does not spend themselves out of debt. If I ran my household like these people run the country, I wouldn't own my house anymore.

[JaJae]

This wasn't about getting money to veterans. The Republicans wanted to get money to seniors and veterans, they just didn't want an expensive, loaded bill.

Senate's Stimulus Measure Blocked

A $158 billion economic stimulus plan drafted by Senate Democrats that included relief for low-income seniors, disabled veterans and the unemployed was blocked by a Republican filibuster last night when the Senate fell a single vote short of the 60 needed to consider the measure.

The defeat by the narrowest of margins nearly ensures passage of a less expensive stimulus plan fashioned by President Bush and House leaders, though the Senate may make some changes. But it keeps the government on track to begin sending hundreds of dollars in payments to most Americans this spring.

...

The Senate package, which included numerous provisions not offered by the House plan, attracted powerful supporters. Automakers Ford and General Motors, home builders, Realtors and mortgage bankers joined the AARP to press Republicans to embrace the Senate measure. Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) left the campaign trail to make rare appearances in the Senate chamber.

The Republicans wanted to separate the spending for seniors/vets and half a separate bill for all the pork. Democrats said no.

[Thorgrim]

Originally Posted by thewise1

I'm well aware of the logic of the situation and how it's supposed to work.

I also know that one does not spend themselves out of debt. If I ran my household like these people run the country, I wouldn't own my house anymore.

No, but many many well respected economists believe you can spend yourself out of a recession, infact that's exactly what Sweden did to become the first nation to recover from the great depression

[Thorgrim]

Originally Posted by JaJae

This wasn't about getting money to veterans. The Republicans wanted to get money to seniors and veterans, they just didn't want an expensive, loaded bill.

Senate's Stimulus Measure Blocked


The Republicans wanted to separate the spending for seniors/vets and half a separate bill for all the pork. Democrats said no.

I really don't see how: added jobless benefits, home heating subsidies, and new tax refunds for coal producers and struggling corporations.

...is pork, anymore than money for seniors/veterans is...

[DosEquis]

I am not trying to justify the extra pork and such... but at the same time I wish some of you guys would get at least this upset when something like ...9 billion dollars goes simply missing in Iraq.

It might be pork and might be shitty policy to have this pork, especially considering our debt and deficit, but it is still drastically better than simply 9 billion dollars "missing".

I didnt see any threads by conservatives expressing how concerned they were about that wasteful event. Its just so ironic how pissy some get when we give a hand out to our own poor, in this case some veterans even, but when we give a 30 billion dollar hand out to Israel or 9 billion goes missing it is some how more justifiable.

So frustrating.

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

I really don't see how: added jobless benefits, home heating subsidies, and new tax refunds for coal producers and struggling corporations.

...is pork, anymore than money for seniors/veterans is...

But the Senate Finance Committee also added billions of dollars in energy tax credit extensions, including an incentive for marginal oil and gas wells, as well as a measure that would reimburse coal companies for interest on wrongfully levied export taxes. Those measures, although adopted with bipartisan support, opened the package to criticism from administration and Republican leaders, who accused Democrats of slowing down the promised payments by loading the bill with sweetheart projects.

Over two years, the Senate package would cost about $204 billion, about $40 billion more than the House bill's two-year cost.

There's a lot of unrelated spending in this bill. The Republicans wanted to get the money out there to veterans as well. They just wanted to do it fiscally responsibly. Your inference is that the Democrats did this against the GOP's wishes which is bullshit. What they did was manage to pass a much more cumbersome spending bill using the veteran spending as political blackmail so they can "See the GOP doesn't want to help veterans!" when the Republicans try to exercise some fiscal responsibility. The same shit the GOP was doing with the war funding bills that everyone complained about.

[Thorgrim]

We are suffering from high energy prices which are hurting the economy...there was no discrimination in WHO would be helped, just the industry in general on the promise they'd lower prices from what they would be

Putting up money to lower energy prices to stimulate the economy is not pork, unless you consider everything pork, in which case the veteran money was pork

And BTW they did vote against the bill with veteran money the first time around, and it will be used in political ads, they won't be able to spin it away, considering you still weren't even able to list one pet pork project, or even one pork project

And voters suffering from a recession will not take kindly to ads that say "well i wanted to save $40 billion for going towards Americans, I'd rather it be saved so our outrageous debt was kept a fraction of a percentage lower"

[thewise1]

Originally Posted by DosEquis

I am not trying to justify the extra pork and such... but at the same time I wish some of you guys would get at least this upset when something like ...9 billion dollars goes simply missing in Iraq.

It might be pork and might be shitty policy to have this pork, especially considering our debt and deficit, but it is still drastically better than simply 9 billion dollars "missing".

I didnt see any threads by conservatives expressing how concerned they were about that wasteful event. Its just so ironic how pissy some get when we give a hand out to our own poor, in this case some veterans even, but when we give a 30 billion dollar hand out to Israel or 9 billion goes missing it is some how more justifiable.

So frustrating.

Iraq angers me just as much, if not more, than this whole thing, for what it's worth.