[Pen-l] the stimulus package...

[Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

I found the following summary of what passed (from SLATE) to be useful:
>Well, that was quick. After a day of rapid-fire negotiations, House and Senate leaders announced last night that they had reached a deal on a $789.5 billion stimulus package that would, among other things, pay for billions in new construction and infrastructure projects, provide tax relief to individuals and businesses, and extend unemployment benefits. Democrats say it will save or create 3.5 million new jobs, a decline from the 4 million they had originally said was the goal. "The deal all but clinches passage of one of the largest economic rescue programs since Franklin Roosevelt launched the New Deal," notes the Wall Street Journal. The New York Times says that a House vote could come as early as Friday, and the Senate would quickly follow so the president can sign it on Monday. There's talk that President Obama might hold a televised prime-time bill signing ceremony. The Los Angeles Times [LAT] says the negotiations were able to move quickly partly due to "to the presence of a team from the White House, which injected itself deeply in the process." After all the partisan fighting, it might be surprising to hear that the final deal "followed remarkably closely to the broad outline that Obama had painted more than a month ago," points out the Washington Post...

>Just because the agreement on the stimulus package came quickly doesn't mean it arrived "without moments of high drama," as the LAT puts it. Everybody points out that at one point in the day, Senate Democrats announced they had reached a deal, but House members denied that was the case. That led to a two-hour meeting in which it seems Democrats were able to win some last-minute concessions.

>Full details on the revised stimulus package weren't available last night, but the papers, especially the WSJ, have lots of details. In an inside story, the LAT handily outlines who will benefit from the package. Approximately 35 percent of the bill's total would go to tax cuts, and the rest would go to spending. The tax relief for individuals was reduced, and the White House also agreed to cut back on the proposed aid to financially strapped state governments. In the end, $53.6 billion will go to a state "stabilization fund," and most of that money will be for schools. The money devoted to tax breaks for home and car buyers was also decreased. But the final agreement did keep the $70 billion measure to prevent millions of Americans from having to pay the Alternative Minimum Tax next year.

>There was grumbling among some Democrats yesterday that their side gave in too easily, but leaders said they had no choice if they wanted to hold on to the three Republican votes in the Senate. There was particular ire directed at the Alternative Minimum Tax provision that they said would have been approved by Congress regardless. "It's about 9 percent of the whole bill," Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa said. "Why is it in there? It has nothing to do with stimulus. It has nothing to do with recovery."

>In a front-page analysis, the NYT says that while the agreement represents "a quick, sweet victory" for the president, it "was hardly a moment for cigars." Obama got his package, but without the broad bipartisan support he was expecting. The question now is whether Obama will be able to move on to other items in his domestic agenda so that his first days in office aren't defined solely by a stimulus package that, by his own admission, may not work as quickly as many Americans might be expecting.

>In a front-page piece, USAT says that while it's clear that Obama "had some stumbles" along the way, many are impressed by the way "Obama and his team have shown a willingness to cut their losses and revise their tactics." In the end, the fight over the stimulus package may have taught the young administration some valuable lessons about doing business in Washington that could prove to be useful as the president continues to pursue his agenda in the coming months.<

another story of interest:
>The [Washington POST] off-leads a look at how employers are increasingly trying to block unemployment payments to former workers. More than one-quarter of people applying for unemployment benefits are being challenged by their former employers, and numbers show the proportion of attempts to block the payouts has "reached record levels in recent years." Employers save money on their unemployment insurance when the claims are dropped, so they've increasingly been trying to show that a worker was fired for misconduct or left voluntarily, two factors that makes someone ineligible to receive benefits. The increase is particularly notable in challenges involving misconduct, which employers lose "about two-thirds of the time." <
-- 
Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own
way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
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