Pat Dollard | Young Americans

The Hill:

Pelosi touts $825 billion stimulus package

By Klaus Marre

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday touted a $825 billion stimulus package that allocates less money for tax cuts than President-elect Obama is asking for.

The package includes $275 billion in tax cuts, $25 billion less than what Obama originally proposed. The tax cuts also take up less than the 40 percent Obama initially suggested to win GOP support.

The package would funnel tens of billions of dollars to state governments, including $87 billion for a temporary increase in the federal match for Medicai. It also includes $90 billion for roads, bridges and other infrastructure works and $43 billion for increased unemployment benefits.

“It’s about modernizing our roads, bridges, et cetera, education for the 21st century, tax cuts that make work pay and create jobs and lower — as initiatives to lower healthcare costs and help workers who are hurt in this economy, and protect our vital services,” Pelosi told reporters.

Pelosi also said that she is willing to have the stimulus measure go through the committee process.

“Next week the bills will be marked up in committee, Appropriations, Ways and Means, and Energy and Commerce,” she told reporters. “The following week we will vote on the floor, send it to the Senate. They will act upon it, go to conference, and then come to agreement; go back to both floors and send it to the president of the United States, all by the President’s Day recess.”

Passage of the measures is unlikely to be as simple as Pelosi made it sound Thursday. Democrats and Republicans alike have voiced concerns over the measure and there are disagreements over the price tag of a stimulus.

“Oh my God,” house Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said of the Democratic stimulus proposal unveiled today.

Boehner read portions of the Democratic draft and said he was “shocked” by what he saw.

“I just can’t tell you how shocked I am at what we’re seeing, that they’re moving on this path of the flawed notion that we can borrow and spend our way back to prosperity,” Boehner told reporters shortly after he reviewed drafts of the proposal.

Pelosi noted that House Democrats had not just accepted Obama’s own proposal.

“I just want you to know that we have now frozen the design, from the standpoint of our proposal. We acted upon the suggestions of the president-elect,” she stated. “We had some ideas of our own, and how we could, maybe, improve upon or facilitate, even — or expedite, let me say, some of the proposals of the president-elect.”

ABC News:

Republicans Find Voice in Opposing Stimulus: ‘Oh, My God’

ABC News’ Rick Klein and Dean Norland report: House Minority Leader John Boehner needed only three words to serve notice that President-elect Barack Obama is nowhere close to achieving the big bipartisan vote on the stimulus package he wants so badly.

“There was no Republican input at all involved in what House Democrats outlined today,” Boehner, R-Ohio, said at a news conference at the Capitol. “I just took a moment to look over the draft from Chairman [David] Obey and the draft or outline from Chairman [Charlie] Rangel. Oh, my God.

“I just can’t tell you how shocked I am at what we’re seeing. You know, it’s clear that they’re moving on this path along the flawed notion that we can borrow and spend our way back to prosperity.”

As we discussed earlier, Republicans heard the Obama team’s discussion of $300 billion in tax cuts and thought (or hoped to think) that was a floor. Many Democrats, meanwhile, thought it was an unacceptably high ceiling, and pressed that number down to the $275 billion in the package produced by House leaders, in consultation with Obama aides.

This is not the final package. But it has to be dismaying to the Obama folks to see finger-pointing and recriminations that fall along such familiar party lines.

The Hill:

Rep. Obey not sure $825B stimulus is enough

By Mike Soraghan and Molly K. Hooper

The $825 billion economic stimulus package rolled out by Democrats on Thursday might not be enough to prevent an economic catastrophe, according to the chief architect of the package.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) also told reporters it may not be the last effort to use big government spending to spur the economy.

“This represents the largest effort by any legislative body in the world to take government action to prevent economic catastrophe,” Obey said, “and even that may be insufficient alone.”

Later in his briefing, he added, “This product may undershoot the mark.”

The bill could be voted on in committee next Wednesday. That’s the day after the inauguration of President-elect Obama — or, as Obey put it, “the day after the crown prince is sworn in.”

He’s hoping to get the bill to the floor by Jan. 28 in order to pass it by Feb. 13.

Among Democrats, liberals said they believe the massive package has enough for all different constituencies to win passage. Conservative Democrats, while alarmed at the spending, don’t want to pick a fight with Obama immediately after he takes office and are looking for ways to support the bill.

But key Republicans are protesting sharply.

“Oh my God,” House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said of the Democratic proposal.

Boehner read portions of the Democratic draft and said he was “shocked” by what he saw.

“I just can’t tell you how shocked I am at what we’re seeing, that they’re moving on this path of the flawed notion that we can borrow and spend our way back to prosperity,” Boehner told reporters shortly after he reviewed drafts of the proposal.

The package, staggering in size, fails to meet the hopes of some members that it would rise over $1 trillion. Still, it has many times the spending that most Democrats were contemplating after Obama’s election.

It has $550 billion in spending on items like assistance for local government, public-works projects and green energy.

It also has $275 billion in tax cuts, $25 billion less than Obama had sought and a smaller part of the package than the 40 percent Obama had proposed.

It also leaves out the “patch” to prevent the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), designed to ensure the very rich pay taxes, from hitting the middle class. Some hoped to cover the $70 billion tab in the stimulus, where it won’t be offset with spending cuts or tax hikes.

But House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) said he expects the Senate to put the AMT patch back in. “I know they will,” Rangel said.

House Democrats also included spending proposals that Obama hadn’t asked for, such as $30 billion to subsidize the so-called “COBRA” payments that people pay to keep health insurance after losing their jobs.

“That idea came from me based on personal experiences,” Obey said. “I felt there was a hole in our hearts if we weren’t taking care of that problem.”

The package would funnel tens of billions of dollars to state governments, including $87 billion for a temporary increase in the federal match for Medicaid. It also includes $90 billion for roads, bridges and other infrastructure works and $43 billion for increased unemployment benefits.

“It’s about modernizing our roads, bridges, et cetera, education for the 21st century, tax cuts that make work pay and create jobs and lower — as initiatives to lower healthcare costs and help workers who are hurt in this economy, and protect our vital services,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).