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Updated Sept. 26, 2008 – 7:13 p.m.
House Passes Stimulus Measure; Senate Proposal Fails
By Liriel Higa, CQ Staff
The House Friday passed a $60.8 billion economic stimulus package designed to pump money into infrastructure projects, unemployment insurance and Medicaid, but a similar measure failed to advance in the Senate.
The House version (
Prospects for the House bill also are dim however, since the White House has threatened a veto of both proposals.
The bill “will not provide short term stimulus or long-term growth for the economy. . . . Instead, the bill would simply increase government spending including self-perpetuating entitlement spending by tens of billions of dollars,” the White House said. “If this bill were presented to the president, he would veto the bill.”
The White House and Republicans have been cool on the need for a second stimulus package. But even if Democrats have lost a legislative battle, they have sensed a potential political win.
“The people who are calling our offices angry about the bailout for Wall Street are saying, ‘Wait a minute. What about us?’,” said Rep. Jim McGovern , D-Mass. “Today Democrats are saying to the American people, to the people of Massachusetts, ‘We hear you. that’s why we have an economic stimulus bill that will provide a $60 billion jump-start to the economy’.”
Within an hour after the Senate failed to proceed to consider the measure, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid , D-Nev., e-mailed a release criticizing “Bush-McCain Republicans” for blocking unemployment insurance, aid to states and housing assistance, among other items.
In fact, the Senate bill was supported by six moderate Republicans, including four who face re-election battles this fall: Norm Coleman of Minnesota, Susan Collins of Maine, Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina and Gordon H. Smith of Oregon.
Two Democrats voted against the plan: Evan Bayh of Indiana and Claire McCaskill of Missouri.
Republicans, meanwhile, criticized the package for its substance and on procedural grounds. The bill was considered under a closed rule, which barred amendments.
House Minority Leader John A. Boehner , R-Ohio, said the proposal was “pure politics.”
“During these days of incredible economic uncertainty, now is not the time to bring a massive $60 billion monstrosity to the House floor particularly since this proposal was introduced just hours ago,” Boehner said.
The ranking Republican of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Thad Cochran of Mississippi, said that Democrats brought up a “so-called stimulus package that was designed to fail.”
House Passes Stimulus Measure; Senate Proposal Fails
“If they were serious about funding for local law enforcement grants or medical research, they would have worked to move across the House and Senate floors the annual appropriations bills that fund these programs. This is one of the fundamental responsibilities of Congress,” Cochran said. The Senate did not pass a single annual appropriations bill this year. The House passed just one, for military construction and the Department of Veterans Affairs (
Stimulus Details
Both chambers’ proposals extend unemployment insurance benefits by seven weeks nationwide and an additional 13 weeks in states with high unemployment; they also provide funding for infrastructure project, state Medicaid plans and food stamps.
The Senate proposal, by Majority Leader Harry Reid , D-Nev., and Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert C. Byrd , D-W.Va., also includes an assortment of other items, such as $490 million for Byrne grants, which go to local law enforcement agencies; $250 million for NASA to work on the space shuttle’s replacement; and $1.2 billion for the National Institutes of Health.
The administration took issue with a variety of items, including language in the Senate measure that would reinstate a ban on oil shale development in the Rocky Mountains.
The White House also objected to the unemployment insurance extension, food stamps funding, and aid to states for Medicaid programs.
The administration also cited as objectionable a provision in the Senate bill that would have cut the price of birth control pills at university clinics and Planned Parenthood centers by undoing part of a 2006 deficit reduction law (PL 109-171). That law removed university clinics and private birth control clinics from the list of entities eligible for “nominal” pricing under the Public Health Service Act, which outlines a series of federal health program partnerships with states, localities and nonprofit schools.
The House plan provides a robust share, at $36.9 billion, for transportation. A large portion of that amount is $18.5 billion for transportation, including $12.8 billion for highway infrastructure. Public transit would receive $3.6 billion for bus and equipment purchases and to meet growing demand, while Amtrak would receive $500 million for upgrades.
The Army Corps of Engineers would receive $5 billion for water resource infrastructure; $7.5 billion would be allocated for drinking water and sewer projects.
Public housing would receive $1 billion for repair and construction projects.
The proposal would provide a modest amount of funding for energy development including $1 billion to support $3.3 billion in loans to encourage the manufacture of advanced vehicle batteries and systems and $500 million to accelerate the development of technologies that will contributed to a reliable domestic energy supply.
Some members of the Blue Dog coalition of conservative Democrats were unhappy that the stimulus bill is not offset.
“I like all of it but it ought to be paid for,” Rep. Allen Boyd , D-Fla., said of the bill’s components. Boyd, one of four Blue Dog leaders, said he told Democratic leadership he thinks the bill is a bad idea.
House Passes Stimulus Measure; Senate Proposal Fails
David Clarke contributed to this story.
First posted Sept. 26, 2008 10:54 a.m.
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