Blog - Articles Tagged 'Economy'

UPDATE: And here is a pdf file of the full bill text. $825 billion in 258 pages.

New York Times:

>House Democrats on Thursday unveiled an $825 billion economic recovery package, an expansive combination of spending and tax cuts that aims to put millions of unemployed Americans back to work and halt what is widely believed to be the nation’s worst recession since the Depression.
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>The package, developed by Congressional Democrats in partnership with President-elect Barack Obama, includes huge increases in federal spending on education, aid to states for Medicaid costs, temporary increases in unemployment benefits and a vast array of public works projects to create jobs.
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>The Senate is developing a version of the recovery package and intense haggling and fierce lobbying are expected over the next few weeks, not just between Democrats and Republicans but between the new administration and Congress, as lawmakers push to pass the stimulus bill by mid-February.
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>But the House version, introduced on Thursday morning by the Appropriations Committee chairman, Representative David Obey, Democrat of Wisconsin, contains the broad parameters that are expected to remain in the final product — slightly more than 60 percent in new spending and just under 40 percent on tax cuts.

The full text of the legislation hasn’t been released yet, but you can get more detailed information, including a break down of all the spending items, from the House Appropriations Committee’s executive summary (.pdf). The summary claims that the bill includes an unprecedented level of transparency, oversight and accountability. That’s the kind of thing we’ll need the text to verify, but these items from the summary sound like they could be pretty good:

>* How funds are spent, all announcements of contract and grant competitions and awards, and formula grant allocations must be posted on a special website created by the President. Program managers will also be listed so the public knows who to hold accountable.
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>* Public notification of funding must include a description of the investment funded, the purpose, the total cost and why the activity should be funded with recovery dollars. Governors, mayors or others making funding decisions must personally certify that the investment has been fully vetted and is an appropriate use of taxpayer dollars. This will also be placed on the recovery website.

In a symbolic vote yesterday afternoon, the House of Representatives voted against releasing the second $350 billion of financial bailout money for use by the Obama administration.

The vote was symbolic-only for two reasons: (1) The Senate already voted last week to give Obama the funds, making it impossible for Congress to present Obama with a joint resolution of disapproval as spelled out in section 115 of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, and (2) even if they could jointly approve such a resolution, there’s no way they could overcome Obama’s threatened veto. I should note that Kagro X at CongressMatters has some doubts about point (1) above and will be examining the issue some more tomorrow.

For now, assuming that the Senate is not going to try again to pass this, it seems worthwhile to look at the symbolic function of the individual votes yesterday in the House.

Just to be clear, the vote was held on a resolution in a disapproval of releasing the second $350 billion tranche of the bailout; so an “aye” vote was a vote against the second tranche of the bailout, while a “nay” vote was a vote in favor of the second tranche. Ninety-nine Democrats joined 171 Republicans in voting against the second tranche. Only four Republicans voted “nay” (in favor of the second tranche).

Here’s a look at the Democrats who switched their votes yesterday from when the House approved the bailout bill (and the first $350 billion for the Bush administration to spend) in October:

Democrats who voted in favor of the bailout in October, but against releasing the second tranche to Obama yesterday:

Rep. Michael Arcuri [D, NY-24]

Rep. Shelley Berkley [D, NV-1]

Rep. Robert Berry [D, AR-1]

Rep. Dan Boren [D, OK-2]

Rep. F. Boyd [D, FL-2]

Rep. Dennis Cardoza [D, CA-18]

Rep. Henry Cuellar [D, TX-28]

Rep. Artur Davis [D, AL-7]

Rep. Brad Ellsworth [D, IN-8]

Rep. Phil Hare [D, IL-17]

Rep. Jane Harman [D, CA-36]

Rep. Ronald Kind [D, WI-3]

Rep. Betty McCollum [D, MN-4]

Rep. Jerry McNerney [D, CA-11]

Rep. Kendrick Meek [D, FL-17]

Rep. Charles Melancon [D, LA-3]

Rep. Harry Mitchell [D, AZ-5]

Rep. Charles Rangel [D, NY-15]

Rep. Laura Richardson [D, CA-37]

Rep. Mike Ross [D, AR-4]

Rep. C.A. Ruppersberger [D, MD-2]

Rep. Louise Slaughter [D, NY-28]

Rep. Zachary Space [D, OH-18]

Rep. Jackie Speier [D, CA-12]

Rep. Peter Welch [D, VT-0]

I suppose the above vote switches could be chalked up to massive outrage from constituents over the first vote, the fact that this vote had no real chance of affecting anything, disappointment with the results from the first $350 billion tranche, no longer being under threat of martial law, or the fact that, so far, Congress has not attached any new strings to how the second tranche is to be used by the new Administration.

Democrats who voted against the original bailout bill (and the first $350 billion tranche) in October, but voted yesterday in favor of releasing the second tranche to Obama:

Rep. Xavier Becerra [D, CA-31]

Rep. Earl Blumenauer [D, OR-3]

Rep. George Butterfield [D, NC-1]

Rep. Kathy Castor [D, FL-11]

Rep. William Clay [D, MO-1]

Rep. Raul Grijalva [D, AZ-7]

Rep. Maurice Hinchey [D, NY-22]

Rep. Donald Payne [D, NJ-10]

Rep. Steven Rothman [D, NJ-9]

Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard [D, CA-34]

Rep. Brad Sherman [D, CA-27]

Rep. Bennie Thompson [D, MS-2]

The votes are a bit stranger to me. Perhaps these Democrats were never ideologically opposed to the bailout; they just trust Obama with the money more than they trust Bush. Maybe they are convinced by the letter from Larry Summers explaining Obama’s intention to use the money differently. Maybe they just don’t want to vote against a powerful and popular new President.

Needless to say (and not very interesting), while many Republicans switched their vote in October for the bailout to a vote yesterday against it, all four of the Republicans that voted in favor of the second tranche yesterday also voted in favor of the bailout in October.

<img src=“http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/05Md9G10hZaIV/340×.jpg”align=“right” width=“220” height"320">The economic stimulus bill is coming to the floor of the House sooner than expected. According to Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s “”http://democraticleader.house.gov/links_and_resources/whip_resources/dailyleader.cfm?pressreleaseID=2752">Daily Leader," Obama and congressional Democrats’ $866 billion attempt at rescuing the economy is now scheduled to be on the House floor this afternoon. View the bill here:

H.R. 1 – American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

The Hill explains that, at the last minute, House Democrats changed the Committee on Rules’ schedule for Monday in order to allow debate of the bill to begin on Tuesday. The debate was originally scheduled to start on Wednesday. When the Library of Congress’ website still lists H.R. 1 as “”http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:HR1:/“>Reserved for the Speaker” and hasn’t yet received the legislative text from the Government Printing Office, moving the bill forward one day in the schedule is significant.

Here’s the rule for today’s debate, agreed to at the Committee’s meeting Monday:

>Resolved, That at any time after the adoption of this resolution the Speaker may, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XVIII, declare the House resolved into the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R. 1) making supplemental appropriations for job preservation and creation, infrastructure investment, energy efficiency and science, assistance to the unemployed, and State and local fiscal stabilization, for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2009, and for other purposes. The first reading of the bill shall be dispensed with. All points of order against consideration of the bill are waived except those arising under clause 9 or 10 of rule XXI. General debate shall be confined to the bill and shall not exceed three and one half hours equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on Appropriations, who may yield control of blocks of that time. After general debate, the Committee of the Whole shall rise without motion. No further consideration of the bill shall be in order except pursuant to a subsequent order of the House.

That last part indicated that there will be no votes on the bill or amendments until the House reconvenes on Wednesday. You can be sure that there will, however, be some not-to-be-missed floor speeches this afternoon.

While the overall stimulus package is expected to pass the House easily Wednesday evening, the most important part of the House’s consideration of the stimulus bill will come earlier on Wednesday when they vote on amendments. How many amendments are voted on – and which amendments make it to the floor for votes – will be determined by the Rules Committee on Tuesday evening. We’ll be watching that closely and reporting back on this blog as soon as we have more information.

One amendment to watch for is Peter DeFazio’s (D-OR), which would boost mass-transit spending in the stimulus by 20 percent. [DeFazio’s amendment has been withdrawn]

That’s it for the House. Now on to the Senate with President Obama’s $825 billion economic stimulus package.

After approving seven amendments, the House of Representatives this evening voted 244 – 188 in favor of H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Not a single Republican member voted in favor of the bill on final passage. On the other hand, these 11 Democrats crossed the aisle to vote with Republicans against the bill:

Rep. Allen Boyd [D, FL-2]

Rep. Bobby Bright [D, AL-2]

Rep. Jim Cooper [D, TN-5]

Rep. Brad Ellsworth [D, IN-8]

Rep. Parker Griffith [D, AL-5]

Rep. Paul Kanjorski [D, PA-11]

Rep. Frank Kratovil [D, MD-1]

Rep. Walter Minnick [D, ID-1]

Rep. Collin Peterson [D, MN-7]

Rep. Heath Shuler [D, NC-11]

Rep. Gene Taylor [D, MS-4]

…more than half of them Blue Dogs.

The stimulus package is now officially in the Senate’s court. Earlier today the Senate Appropriations Committee released a .pdf of the spending portion of the bill, which totals around $366 billion. The Senate Finance Committee’s tax cut portion of the bill totals $522 billion, bringing the total price tag of the Senate’s version to $877 billion. You can view the Senate bill, leave comments, and track news and blog coverage here:

S. 1 – American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

In order to get the bill out of the Senate, Democrats will have to pick off at least two Republicans, and have no Democratic defectors. Senator Grassley’s (R-IA) Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) patch amendment, which was added in yesterday’s Finance Committee markup, could help win over the crucial votes. Besides Grassley, Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe (ME) also voted in favor of the bill during committee markup.

After the House vote tonight, President Obama issued the following statement:

>Last year, America lost 2.6 million jobs. On Monday alone, we learned that some of our biggest employers plan to cut another 55,000. This is a wakeup call to Washington that the American people need us to act and act immediately.
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>That is why I am grateful to the House of Representatives for moving the American Recovery and Reinvestment plan forward today. There are many numbers in this plan. It will double our capacity to generate renewable energy. It will lower the cost of health care by billions and improve its quality. It will modernize thousands of classrooms and send more kids to college. And it will put billions of dollars in immediate tax relief into the pockets of working families.
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>But out of all these numbers, there is one that matters most to me: this recovery plan will save or create more than three million new jobs over the next few years.
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>I can also promise that my administration will administer this recovery plan with a level of transparency and accountability never before seen in Washington. Once it is passed, every American will be able to go the website recovery.gov and see how and where their money is being spent.
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>The plan now moves to the Senate, and I hope that we can continue to strengthen this plan before it gets to my desk. But what we can’t do is drag our feet or allow the same partisan differences to get in our way. We must move swiftly and boldly to put Americans back to work, and that is exactly what this plan begins to do.

The ever-growing economic stimulus package, which was passed by the House of Representatives last week, is slated to be debated in the Senate beginning this afternoon. Since the House’s action on the bill last week, the stimulus package has grown by about $70 billion (now totaling $888 billion), and it is expected to grow even more as it is dealt with by the Senate, probably to more than $900 billion.

While Democrats in the House were able to pass the stimulus package without a single Republican vote, Senate Democrats will need to win the support of at least two Senate Republicans; more if any in their own party defect. This puts Republicans in a strong position to alter the bill through amendments (more on that later; let’s talk procedure first…).

According to the Democrats’ Senate Calendar, at 2PM on Monday, the Senate will proceed to consideration of H.R. 1, Economic Recovery and reinvestment Act of 2009 (aka the stimulus package). This is a debatable motion, therefore filibusterable, so the first legislative hurdle will be a cloture motion that will require 60 votes for passage. I expect that there will be plenty of Republicans willing to join with the Democrats on this in order to move the debate forward.

Now, the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committees have created their own version of the stimulus package that includes some major changes to the version that the House passed. Once the Senate officially begins debate of H.R. 1, the Senate version will be voted on as a substitute amendment – S.Amdt.98. It would strike out the entire text of H.R. 1 and replace it with what was agreed to by the Senate Committees.

Then the amendment process really begins. How this goes – nobody knows. But it’s expected to be a pretty free-flowing and open process. Technically, all the amendments offered to the bill at this point will be secondary amendments, amendments to S.Amdst.98 (and no, tertiary amendments are not allowed).

On a conference call with reporters on Friday, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said that Democrats plan to let Republicans have their amendments debated and voted on:

>If there are things that Republicans find objectionable, they can offer an amendment and get a majority vote to take it out. Or if they want to make a switch between the ratio of tax cuts to spending they can try. Speaking for myself, and I think I speak for most Democrats … I am not sure they would get much Democratic support to greatly cut back on the spending side and further increase the tax cuts.

As for the amendments that will be offered, here’s what we know right now:

• Chuck Schumer will be offering an amendment to add $3 billion to the public transportation funds in the bill. A similar amendment was added to the bill in the House.
  
• Patty Murray (D-WA) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) will offer an amendment to add $20 billion (or so) to infrastructure projects. Schumer estimated this to cost $20-30 billion on “”http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=1&docID=news-000003022289">Face the Nation" on Sunday.
  

• Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Susan Collins (R-ME) may be looking at an amendment to cut out spending they consider “questionable.”
  

• Senate Republicans will likely offer an amendment that would provide government backing of 30-year fixed rate mortgages at 4 percent for credit-worthy home buyers and homeowners looking to refinance.
  

• Kent Conrad (D-ND) will offer an amendment increasing the $7,500 first-time home buyer credit.
  

• Chris Dodd (D-CT) may offer a 90-day moratorium on housing foreclosures.
  

• John Ensign (R-NV) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) will offer an amendment to reduce taxes on profits earned in other countries by U.S. companies.
  

• Republicans will offer an amendment to lower the 10 and 15 percent income tax brackets by 5 percent each.
  
  

• Someone, maybe Dick Durbin (D-IL) will likely introduce a “”http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090130/bs_afp/uspoliticstradedispute">Buy American" amendment to match the one that was adopted by the House.
  
  

We’ll be keeping close track of the Senate’s stimulus debate this week and reporting the developments as they occur. To keep up with the debate, subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed and the feeds on OpenCongress for the stimulus bill itself.

The Senate Finance Committee has posted the Senate version of the stimulus in one giant .pdf. It’s 736 pages, in the form of a substitute amendment to H.R. 1 – the version of the stimulus that was passed by the House. This will be voted on by the Senate either tomorrow or Wednesday, with a final vote on the bill expected a few legislative days later

Dig in, and if you find anything fishy, leave it in the comments.

UPDATE: I sent this out on Twitter last week, and now that the stimulus is officially in the Senate, I figure it makes sense to put it here too:

>6 GOP Senators voted for both TARP tranches (http://bit.ly/wNHR + http://bit.ly/1SU53E). How will they vote on the stimulus?

The Senate begins voting on amendments to the stimulus package today. CQ Politics seems to have the most info right now on what’s coming to a vote.

Just wanted to get this link up here for now… I’ll update in a bit.

UPDATE: Okay, this is very rough, but I’ve got a quick rundown of the Senate stimulus amendments that were introduced yesterday in printed in the Congressional Record.

• Amdt 99 (Sen. Robert Casey [D, PA]) – Establishes a bipartisan Joint Select Committee on Economic Recovery. The committee would be in charge of conducting “continuing oversight over the implementations of this Act with a particular focus on (A) the success of this Act in creating jobs; and (B) any instances of waste, fraud, and abuse in programs funded by this Act.” They would be required to report back to Congress every 3 months.
  
  

• Amdt 100 (Sen. Robert Casey [D, PA], Sen. George Voinovich [R, OH]) – “ASSISTANCE FOR COSTS OF DISTRIBUTING BONUS COMMODITIES.” “The purposes of this section are (1) to encourage States and food assistance agencies to accept commodities acquired by the Secretary of Agriculture for farm support and surplus removal activities; and (2) to offset the costs of the States and food assistance agencies for the intrastate transportation, storage, and distribution of the commodities.”
  
  

• Amdt 101 (Sen. Arlen Specter [R, PA]) – On page 129, line 10, strike “$2,700,000,000” and insert “$9,200,000,000” [funds for the NIH “Office of the Director”]. On page 129, line 11, strike “$1,350,000,000” and insert “$7,850,000,000.” [this is an increase in the amount of funding directed to the “Institutes and Centers of the National Institutes of Health and to the Common Fund established under section 402A©(1) of the Public Health Service Act”].
  
  

• Amdt 102 (Sen. Mary Landrieu [D, LA], Sen. Charles Grassley [R, IA] Sen. Thomas Harkin [D, IA]) – On page 251, lines 13 and 14, strike “housing:” and insert the following: "housing:

Provided further, That funding used for section 2301©(3)(E) of the Act shall also be available to redevelop demolished, blighted, or vacant properties, including those damaged or destroyed in areas subject to a disaster declaration by the President under title IV of the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act (42 U.S.C. 5121 et seq.):"

• Amdt 103 (Sen. Mary Landrieu [D, LA]) -

On page 194, beginning on line 22, strike “$637,875,000” and all that follows through “equipment):” on line 13 and insert: “$757,875,000, to remain available until September 30, 2013, of which $84,100,000 shall be for child development centers; $481,000,000 shall be for warrior transition complexes; $42,400,000 shall be for health and dental clinics (including acquisition, construction, installation, and equipment); and $120,000,000 shall be for the Secretary of the Army to carry out at least three pilot projects to use the private sector for the acquisition or construction of military unaccompanied housing for all ranks and locations in the United States:”. [boosts military construction funds for the army; adds the section about pilot programs to acquire “military unaccompanied housing” through the private sector].

• Amdt 104 (Sen. Barbara Mikulski [D, MD], Sen. Samuel Brownback [R, KS]) – This is a long and complex one – it seems to eliminate taxes on car-loan interest payments for new cars purchased after November 12, 2008, and before January 1, 2010.
  
  

• Amdt 105 (Sen. Robert Casey [D, PA]) – requires “the inspector general of each agency that receives funds appropriated under this Act” to “submit reports on the oversight activities of that inspector general with respect to such funds to the Government Accountability Office” so that the Comptroller General can submit reports to Congress containing “a summary of the oversight activities of the offices of inspectors general” and “an evaluation of the effectiveness of” the stimulus.
  
  

Again, I apologize for this being so ugly and inconsistent. Time is of the essence as votes on these are taking place this afternoon. All page numbers in the amendments refer to the Senate stimulus version released as a .pdf yesterday.

Republican leaders in Congress have released a list of 32 wasteful items they have identified in the stimulus.

Steve Benen at Washington Monthly does some math and finds that the items in the list come out to about $18.7 billion, or about 2 percent of the overall bill.

Related: The New York Post has the scoop on what Hollywood’s got coming to them in the bill:

>A provision in the current “stimulus” bill would allow Hollywood moguls to write off half the production and filming costs of big-budget films and TV shows.
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>Backed by Walt Disney and the Motion Picture Association of America, the provision amounts to an estimated $246 million Hollywood tax break over 11 years.
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>It’s the least Democrats can do for some of their richest and most generous supporters, who gave nearly $20 million in campaign contributions to Democrats during the 2008 election cycle, according to OpenSecrets.org.

Remember, Hollywood got $470 million from Congress in last year’s financial bailout too…

UPDATE: The Hollywood tax break has been stripped from the bill by an amendment from Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK).