Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Obama, Democrats Agree to $500 Billion Stimulus Package
WASHINGTON - While an auto bailout is on life support, President-elect Barack Obama and Democratic congressional leaders have agreed to a $500 billion economic-stimulus package that they want to move next month even before Obama takes office.
Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., who'll be Obama's White House chief of staff, met Wednesday with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and other Democratic leaders in a strategy session aimed at fast-tracking stimulus legislation.
The meeting ended with a tentative deal to seek a half-trillion dollars to create jobs and spur economic recovery, with more than one-third of it funding "shovel-ready" infrastructure projects, senior Democratic aides said Friday.
Aides to Obama and Pelosi confirmed the meeting but declined to comment on a specific amount for the stimulus plan.
"What I can confirm is that Congressman Emanuel did meet with (congressional) leadership on Wednesday," said Amy Brundage, an Obama spokeswoman.
Obama on Saturday urged the creation of "millions of jobs" through the largest public investment in the country's roads, bridges and other infrastructure needs since the interstate freeway system was built in the 1950s under President Dwight Eisenhower.
Obama advisers previously said the stimulus plan could cost as much as $700 billion, but this is the first time a specific price tag has been placed on it.
Democratic lawmakers said much of the $165 billion or more in infrastructure spending likely would go to projects already approved in earlier sessions, with building permits, approved environmental impact statements and other steps in place.
The meaning of "infrastructure" probably will be broadened to include expanding broadband Internet access and creating "digital highways" for the 21st century economy, Democratic lawmakers and aides said.
Senate Republicans late Thursday derailed a $14 billion bailout for the Big Three automakers in a rebuke to President George W. Bush and congressional Democrats who'd negotiated it and pushed it through the House of Representatives.
It likely will be harder, however, for Republican lawmakers to block the much larger stimulus package because there will be fewer of them in the next session of Congress, which is scheduled to begin Jan. 6, two weeks before Obama's inauguration.
Democrats expanded their House and Senate margins in the Nov. 4 elections that made Obama the nation's first African-American president, but they will fall just shy of veto-proof majorities in both chambers.
Some Republican members of Congress have been at least guardedly receptive to Obama's plan to move quickly to stem the rising unemployment rate and jolt the economy by pumping tens of billions of dollars into public works.
James Baker, who served as President Ronald Reagan's treasury secretary and chief of staff, went so far as to suggest last month that Bush and Obama work together on a large stimulus plan.
Congress passed and Bush signed a $700 billion bailout for the financial-services industry in October, and the federal government has bought stakes in failing banks since then.
Those moves prompted criticism from labor unions and community advocates that Congress and Bush were favoring "Wall Street over Main Street."
Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, said Friday that the Kentucky Republican had no position on Obama's promised stimulus plan because a concrete bill or proposal hadn't been advanced yet.
"I've heard between $500 billion and a trillion (dollars)," Stewart said. "The numbers have been all over the map. I don't know what (figure) they're actually going to go with, but it would be all deficit spending."
Obama has said his stimulus plan will fund projects that can begin within six months and be completed within two years.
Obama also vowed that the infrastructure projects would be based on national priorities, not on the parochial interests that have led to congressional pork in the past.
Rep. John Spratt, a South Carolina Democrat who chairs the House Budget Committee, said he didn't know the specific dollar amount of Obama's stimulus plan.
Spratt, however, said his conversations with other key Democratic lawmakers indicated it will likely increase previously appropriated money for projects already under way.
"There will be legislation written, but it will in many respects simply add funds to existing programs," he said.
Spratt said there's discussion of requiring an even narrower timeframe than Obama's 180-day limit for using the new money - possibly as small as half.
Such a limit, Spratt said, would favor work such as resurfacing roads, upgrading water-treatment plants and sewer pipes, and making federal buildings more energy-efficient - over more ambitious, long-term projects.
The president-elect and his congressional allies want "to get (a stimulus bill) passed and on Obama's desk so he can sign it on Inauguration Day," said a Democratic aide, who asked not to be named because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly about the plan.
However, the measure won't be the result of "Obama dictating to Congress and getting whatever he wants rubber-stamped," the aide said.
- Posted in
10 Comments so far
Show AllChange I can believe in.
Actually the economy needs less stimulation, and more stewardship of our natural resources, clean water, and uncontaminated food supply (no GMOs).
Oh yeah, and more justice and peace.
www.NotOneMore.US
Economic stimulus, Demok style, is more of the same elite class war aggression against the people, another capitalist mega-racket of wealth redisribution from the people to the elites. The crux of the mass deception is in the destination for the public funds: To nodes of concentrated power. God Bless the United Matrix of Capitalism!
At first I was put off by your writing style (a little harsh?), but then I read what you wrote several times. While your style is probably ok for this forum, I suggest that you could rewrite it for submission as a letter to the editor to a newspaper or magazine where it could be more widely read. The ideas you express are worth thinking about. As your post is written now, it might turn some people off before thay have the chance to think.
"...resurfacing roads, upgrading water-treatment plants and sewer pipes, and making federal buildings more energy-efficient..."
Whoo hoo - more hard-labor jobs for $10/hour. Can just see the kids racing to get in line...
"Son, the President says there will soon be millions of shovel-ready jobs available."
"What's a shovel, dad?"
There are many 1 hour payday loans specialist and bad credit loans specialist online but you need to be very careful. Most of them are scams so doing your due diligence is important.
Here is a tool (Opinion Editorial format template) to Promote a major expansion of national rail infrastructure instead of the wider freeways "infrastructure" boondoggles. Some of you less cynical folks could use this to pressure your local Senators or Congress people now.
Read and use or whatever.
California voters in November passed a 10 Billion dollar state wide bond measure to fund new high speed passenger rail from Sacramento to San Diego. How about the Obama administration do the same for every metro area in America? This would create tens of thousands of jobs, reduce impacts on the climate, make the US competetive with other modern economies, and result in major a reduction in fossil fuels consumed. Seems like a no brainer.
Give it a try.
***************************
Our future is with rail, not wider freeways
(template)
It appears that in the name of creating jobs, Congress and the U.S. Senate in 2009 will attempt to waste hundred of billions of dollars by expanding the obsolete petroleum based and failing freeway systems throughout the nation. Congressman (insert your congress person), Senator (insert your Senator) and Senator (insert your other Senator) should scrap these same obsolete freeway expansion plans. Our future as a civilization is now dependent on creating a new transportation system to survive the end of cheap petroleum and climate change. More and wider freeways and highways will only hasten economic and climatic chaos and disruption.
The only way to make this transition to a 21st century transportation system is through major expansion of passenger rail as well as extensive upgrading of existing rail infrastructure as a viable alternative to the crumbing freeway systems.
The planned expansion “NAFTA freeways,” which includes the expansion of Interstate (insert freeway in your area), being promoted throughout the country by governors, Congress and the paving industry to accommodate millions of bigger and heavier trucks from Mexico and Canada must be stopped and scrapped.
Surely we must repair and upgrade some of the most vital bridges around the country, but we must simultaneously create a rail-based public transportation system. At some point in the near future the trucking and airline transportation systems are likely to fail, and if we do not prepare for that inevitability there will be chaos and major economic disruption because of our dangerous dependence on these two petroleum-based systems for our essential needs.
While worldwide demand for oil is temporarily diminishing we should take advantage of this lull in demand and massively expand rail infrastructure throughout the nation. We can wean ourselves off of our over-dependence on petroleum with bold leadership from Congressman (insert your Congressperson), Senator (your Senator) and Senator (insert your other Senator) as well as the Obama Administration.
Light rail and heavy rail is the safest and most sustainable transportation on the planet. In the case of passenger transport, hybrid and other hyper-mileage cars can compete with light rail only when used as carpool vehicles. Passenger rail achieves between 50 to 80 passenger miles per gallon, and about 70 to 100 grams of carbon per passenger per mile. A 40-mpg auto can achieve between 40 or 80 (with 2 occupants) passenger miles per gallon. The death rate for all rail is 0.7 deaths per billion miles traveled, while the death rate for motor vehicle use is more than 10 deaths per billion miles traveled.
Fifty years of building highways and freeways for autos and trucking without any regard to urban planning, the impact on our climate, the effects on our health as well as the impact to our psychological well being as a society has led us to this over dependence on a failed system.
Many major urban areas in the country are turning towards high-speed light rail. Why is the (insert or region, southeast or your state) not forging ahead with a new high-speed passenger rail system from (insert your metro area)?
In November of 2008 the people of California voted to fund a 10 billion dollar state bond that will be matched by 20 billion dollars of federal transportation dollars to build a high-speed passenger rail system from Sacramento to Los Angeles. This action by California voters is awe inspiring!
The new Amtrak rail from New York to Washington, D.C.,, the same train Vice President elect Joe Biden rides to work every day, has seen an increase in rider-ship of 20 percent from 2006-07, for a total of 3.1 million passenger trips. An upgraded Amtrak route from San Jose to Sacramento is up 15 percent from 2006-07 for a total of 1.4 million passenger trips.
As constituents we must convince Congressman (insert) — (chairman of ?? …. )— Senator (insert) and Senator (insert) as well as other (insert your state) lawmakers that we must have a high-speed light rail system in the (insert your region or state) as well as major upgrades and expansion of rail infrastructure throughout the nation. These new rail systems will not only provide thousands of new jobs for decades but will keep the (insert your region or state) and the country economically competitive with other economic superpowers in Asia and Europe.
We must demand rail infrastructure now. We either transition off of our complete dependence to petroleum by going to rail now or surrender to a complete collapse of our whole economic system and way of life.
(your name)
This is a very good plan. I've copied the template to my mailbox and will get it out to my senators and reps as soon as I can fill in the information. Thanks!
Just imagine (I live in OR) light rail from Seattle all the way to San Diego. Sounds so much better than ever-widening freeways smothering more and more land to accommodate ever larger vehicles and more big rigs.
The stimulus package proposed by President Obama is one of the ways to save our weakening economy. All of us are affected and suffer from the devastating effects of economic mess. As I’ve known not just the US economy is in need of payday loans. The whole modern financial system is in a cash crunch. Obama has put together a massive aid package, the largest ever assembled. It is working its way through the halls of congress, but not nearly as fast as an application goes through the average payday loan store. The largest world economies are affected, such as the UK, Japan, and Germany – all are experiencing a serious cash crunch. They may need to be making a payday loan of their own.