House, Senate Negotiators Reach Agreement on Stimulus

[Earth Bound Misfit]

Source: wapo

House and Senate negotiators reached agreement today on a stimulus plan with a cost of about $789 billion after scaling down the versions passed by both houses, congressional leaders announced.

The differences between the Senate and House versions were resolved," Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters this afternoon.

He said the final version "creates more jobs than the original Senate bill and spends less than the original House bill." The bill passed by the Senate yesterday totaled $838 billion. The House version approved last week had a price tag of $819 billion.





Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/11/AR2009021101836.html?hpid=topnews

[fencesitter]

1. Cut out health care and education for tax cuts...

I am so looking forward to my tax cut since I haven't had one in the past ten years or so.

[Barack_America]

2. And Wall Street is getting what, another trillion?

Glad to know where I rank in government spending priorities.

[GinaMaria]

4. government spending priorities with OUR money!

Can't wait to see the final version.

[TheCoxwain]

3. Democrats are such wimps !!!!

PUKES GET EVERYTHING THEY WANT EVEN THOUGH DEMS HAVE CLOSE TO FILIBUSTER PROOF MAJORITY.

This is Bullshit

[VeraAgnes]

5. Tomorrow is another day....we made progress in the public arena

and the repugs looked foolish, disconcerted with Americans......that factual image has power.

[Still Sensible]

7. Not true based on what I read

The summary being reported says the ratio of tax cuts to spending is now 35%/65%... from my standpoint, that is a lot better than the 42%/58% ratio of the Senate plan. Apparently the last quibble is over how $10 billion in school infrastructure funds would be distributed. Those funds will definitely be there, the issue is through the state government or not.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/11/stimulus.plan/index.html

[4lbs]

8. Sorry, the people complaining about this bill will still complain even if it were 100% spending.

n/t

[Still Sensible]

9. No shit! n/t

[tom_paine]

10. Is the primary purpose of government to pretend to fail?

Just askin'.

:shrug:

[Earth Bound Misfit]

6. It's not a done deal...YET.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090211/ap_on_go_co/congress_stimulus_357


...Pelosi was conspicuously absent from the news conference in which members of the Senate announced the agreement. It was not clear whether she stayed away out of unhappiness or a scheduling conflict, but moments later, Reid arrived in her office.

...Officials had said previously that one of the final issues to be settled was money for school modernization, a priority for Pelosi as well as Obama and one on which they differed with Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and other moderates whose votes will be essential for final Senate approval.

...The reductions in the bill's size caused grumbles among liberal Democrats, who described them as a concession to the moderates, particularly Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., who are under pressure from conservative Republicans to hold down spending.

[msongs]

11. Did the Feinstein (R - corporate ho) get her internet special interest hijacking in there?

read another thread on DU where the right winger from CA was trying to sneak in an amendment that would benefit corporate internet providers at the expense of users. did it make the bill?

Msongs

[creeksneakers2]

12. They took out all the money for the $15,000 home buyer credit

That was my shot for finally being able to buy at house. It was only $19 billion out of the $2 trillion all the stimuli will cost together. It would have sparked the housing market, which supposedly is the center of all the trouble. The amendment for the housing money passed unanimously. Now Reid and Pelosi just scrap the whole thing.

Now I hope the stimulus package doesn't pass.

[NeoConsSuck]

14. They took out *all* the money?

I think it was cut back to the original 7500, but I could be wrong.

[liberalpragmatist]

17. The housing credit was a joke...

... that was overall tilted to the rich.

ThinkProgress has more:

> http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2009/02/09/homeownership-credit/

...

Here’s what’s wrong with the credit:

Shifting to unrestricted tax credit doesn’t reduce inventory: While I wasn’t wild about the first-time homebuyers’ tax credit (it largely paid people who were likely to buy a house anyway), it was at least narrowly targeted. Now, anyone who buys a home is suddenly eligble for a $15,000 windfall from the government. There’s another name for first-time homebuyers: renters. So the nice thing about incentivizing renters to make their first home purchase is that each buyer would reduce by one the number of properties available for sale.

We’re currently sitting with more than 4 million new and existing unsold homes available for sale, but shifting to an unrestricted tax credit does nothing to reduce that inventory. In order for most current homeowners to take advantage of the tax credit, they will need to sell their existing home, resulting in a net change of zero. So we’re basically throwing $15,000 per housing purchase at a solution that does nothing to help the housing crisis.

More useful to wealthier households: There is no longer a phase out for upper-income buyers. Moreover, it’s not actually $15,000 across the board. It’s 10 percent of the purchase price, up to $15,000. So if you happen to buy a home for more than $150,000, you get the full amount. A less expensive home? A smaller credit. In 94 of 168 metropolitan areas (as of the 3rd quarter last year), the median sales price of single-family homes was below $150,000, so the credit is more useful to wealthier households in most housing markets.

No longer refundable and skewed towards the rich: If you happen to have a tax burden less than $15,000, assuming you have just bought a house for $150,000 or more, you don’t get to claim the full amount of the credit (read: cash back that you could spend in a way that’s stimulative for the broader economy). The only people who can claim the full amount in one year are making over $100,000 (let’s keep in mind that these people have just bought a house and are claiming pretty substantial mortgage interest and property tax deductions before we even get to AGI). When you spread the refund over two years, you need to be making $75,000 to get close to claiming the full credit. This credit is unquestionably skewed in favor of wealthier households.

At $35 billion, it’s the second most expensive credit after the actually stimulative “making work pay” credit and more than twice as expensive as the equally brain-dead NOL carryback provision.

Overall, it wasn't very stimulative, and it was skewed to the rich. Sorry if you were going to benefit, but as an overall piece of legislation it did very little for the economy.

[w4rma]

18. It's actually good for the nation that they did.

Your 1st house may cost less because it wasn't in there, also. It was a give away to the wealthy and it would have propped up a bubble that is being burst.

[Paulaguyon]

13. Is the temporary Medicaid for the unemployed provision still in?

Or was it cut off? Does anyone know?

[Earth Bound Misfit]

15. Link...

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h1eas.txt.pdf

[Earth Bound Misfit]

16. Link to (H.R. 1) February 10, 2009

http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=111_cong_bills&docid=f:h1eas.txt.pdf

[Jack_DeLeon]

19. So what are you going to do with your $13 dollars extra a paycheck?

I think I'll make sure to save it for Christmas or something.

[Earth Bound Misfit]

20. $13 dollars worth of

:beer:

I sure ain't gonna see any of this:

There is also a $70 billion, one-year fix for the alternative minimum tax. The fix would save some 20 million mainly upper-middle-income taxpayers about $2,000 in taxes for 2009.