President Barack Obama warned on Thursday that failure to act on an economic recovery package could plunge the nation into a long-lasting recession that might prove irreversible, a fresh call to a recalcitrant Congress to move quickly.
In an op-ed piece in The Washington Post, the president argued that each day without his stimulus package, Americans lose more jobs, savings and homes. His message came as congressional leaders struggle to control the huge stimulus bill that’s been growing larger by the day in the Senate. The addition of a new tax break for homebuyers Wednesday evening sent the price tag well past $900 billion.
Senate Democratic leaders hope for passage of the legislation by Friday at the latest, although prospects appear to hinge on crafting a series of spending reductions that would make the bill more palatable to centrists in both parties.
Obama painted a bleak picture if lawmakers do nothing.
“This recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse,” Obama wrote in the newspaper piece titled, “The Action Americans Need.”
He rejected the argument that more tax cuts are needed in the plan and that piecemeal measures would be sufficient, arguing that Americans made their intentions clear in the election.
“I reject these theories, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change,” he wrote.
His latest plea came on the same day the economy dealt with another dose of bad news: A massive jump in jobless claims and another round of weak retail sales.
Initial jobless claims rose to 626,000, a 26-year high, the Labor Department said. And the number of claims by people continuing to apply for unemployment benefits reached a new record of nearly 4.8 million.
The housing tax break was the most notable attempt to date to add help for the crippled industry and gave Republicans a victory as they work to remake the legislation more to their liking.
Three swing-vote senators met with Obama at the White House on Wednesday to discuss possible cutbacks, but they declined to discuss details of their talks. Obama has made the legislation a cornerstone of his recovery plan.
For their part, Senate Republicans signaled they would persist in their efforts to reduce spending in the measure, to add tax cuts and reduce the cost of mortgages for millions of homeowners.
Despite bipartisan concerns about the cost, Republicans failed in a series of attempts on Wednesday to cut back the bill’s size.
(Source: Yahoo News)
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9 Responses
wait a minute what happened to bipartisanship?
what happened to his promise of not signing anything passed by congress for 5 days to allow the PEOPLE to review the bill online? so far he is OH FER TWO. that must have been the ‘ transparency ‘ he was campaigning about.
Everyone please call your senators and ask them to vote against this package, chances are that this this will not help you personally. Obama is trying to push this bill through today. You may end up paying $6,700 in taxes to repay this package.
NY – Gillibrand, Kirsten (202) 224-4451
NY – Schumer, Charles (202) 224-6542
Here are just a few of the programs and projects that have been included in the House Democrats’ proposal:
· $650 million for digital TV coupons.
· $600 million for new cars for the federal government.
· $6 billion for colleges/universities – many which have billion dollar endowments.
· $50 million in funding for the National Endowment of the Arts.
· $44 million for repairs to U.S. Department of Agriculture headquarters.
· $200 million for the National Mall, including $21 million for sod.
5. The plan establishes at least 32 new government programs at a cost of over $136 billion. That means more than a third of this plan’s spending provisions are dedicated to creating new government programs.
6. The plan provides spending in at least 150 different federal programs, ranging from Amtrak to the Transportation Security Administration. Is this the “targeted” plan Democratic leaders promised?
7. Even though the legislation contains at least 152 separate spending proposals, the authors of the plan can only say that 34 have any chance at keeping or growing jobs.
8. Just one in seven dollars of an $18.5 billion expenditure on “energy efficiency” and “renewable energy programs” would be spent within the next 18 months.
9. The total cost of this one piece of legislation is almost as much as the annual discretionary budget for the entire federal government.
10. The House Democrats’ bill will cost each and every household $6,700 in additional debt, paid for by our children and grandchildren.
11. The bill provides enough spending – $825 billion – to give every man, woman, and child in America $2,700. $825 billion is enough to give every person in Ohio $72,000.
12. $825 billion is enough to give every person living in poverty in the United States $22,000.
13. Although the House Democrats’ proposal has been billed as a transportation and infrastructure investment package, in actuality only $30 billion of the bill – or three percent – is for road and highway spending. A recent study from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that only 25 percent of infrastructure dollars can be spent in the first year, making the one year total less than $7 billion.
14. Much of the funding within the House Democrats’ proposal will go to programs that already have large, unexpended balances. For example, the bill provides $1 billion for Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) – a program that already has $16 billion on hand. States also are sitting on some $9 billion in unused highway funds – funds that Congress is prepared to rescind later this year.
15. All board members of the “Accountability and Transparency Board” created by this legislation are appointees of the President; none will be appointed by Congress.
16. A scant 2.7 percent, or $22.3 billion of the overall package, is dedicated to small business tax relief.
17. The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that the legislation increases by seven million the number of people who get a check back from the IRS that exceeds what they paid in payroll and income taxes.
18. The “Making Work Pay” tax credit at the center of the plan amounts to $1.37 a day, or about the price of a cup of coffee.
19. Almost one-third of the so-called “tax relief” in the House Democrats’ bill is spending in disguise, meaning that true tax relief makes up only 24 percent of the total package – not the 40 percent that President Obama had requested.
20. $825 billion is just the beginning – many Capitol Hill Democrats want to spend even more taxpayer dollars on their “stimulus” plan. In fact, the Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. David Obey (D-WI), told Roll Call earlier this month, “I would not be surprised to see us go further on some of these programs down the line.”
Need I say more?
He’s beginning to seem a bit like Jimmy Carter (well the world survived, so we shouldn’t complain). The President seems to have a clear notion that we are the verge of the full scale Republicans, while the only reason the COngress doesn’t “fiddle” while everything burns is probably lack of musical ability.
The stimulus is really a badly need “bailout” without which 2009 will be compared to 1931, and worse, by 2010 we’ll be comparing things to 1932. Medicaid and unemployment payments and welfare have to go up, significantly, and that money has to come from the Federal government since states can’t print money, which is why their credit ratings are collapsing and several are going broke.
The Congressional Democrats are focused on pork and patronage, and the Congressional Republicans are trying not to seem any cleverer (they correctly complain about Demoractic hands in the till, but then suggest cutting the tax rates on non-existent profits, and ignore the deflation caused by a massive decline in consumer spending).
Wish the President luck. He’ll need it. And don’t worry, “Helicopter Ben” is really in charge and he seems to know what’s he doing.
Wait a minute; I thought the problem was that the Republicans listen to Rush Limbaugh. Maybe Rush Limbaugh came on Capital Hill to manipulate the Republican lawmakers?
I think that the President is starting to see that governing is not about just making executive orders and getting them carried out. He may very well start suffering from voter revolt. Oh me oh my!
#3-no one is discussing paying for this – I think they plan to “print” the money (which they can get away with as long as deflation continues).
Why does Barak Hussein Obama insists on getting his way and getting it now?
“Haste makes waste”. “Look before you leap”.
And: observe the fascinating parallel to the introduction of communism into Russia (USSR), here very cautiously – so to speak – and stealthily, and yet: “the government is the only one who can do this (“rescue” the country”)”; “we (self-proclaimed saviors) are the only ones who can do it”; “we have the interests of ‘the people’ at heart” “we must control the power in order to do what needs to be done”. The Stalinists were blunt and brutal; America’s “New Left” are subtle; the end result…You who have the memories, or have read uncensored history books, will readily see and become prepared to combat this in all legal ways necessary.
The reason for Obama requesting the “package” right away, is that with every passing hour people are realizing the sheer madness of this bill. [not to mention that his personality cult appeal is diminishing rapidly.]
I see we have so many experts here trying to offer better ideas. The problem is that many here had no problem with the policies of the last eight years that brought up to this critical mess. You should have offered your expertise to Bush before his administration ruined the American Dream, which now needs repair.