House GOP votes against stimulus package
 

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The House on Wednesday evening passed an $819 billion economic stimulus package Wednesday on a party-line vote, despite President Obama's efforts to achieve bipartisan support for the bill.

The final vote was 244 to 188. No Republicans voted for the bill, while 11 Democrats voted against it.

The Senate is likely to take up the bill next week.

"I hope that we can continue to strengthen this plan before it gets to my desk," Obama said in a statement after the vote. "We must move swiftly and boldly to put Americans back to work, and that is exactly what this plan begins to do."

In floor debate earlier, House Democrats offered near-unanimous support for the bill, touting the package's ability to quickly create jobs and jumpstart economic growth.

"One week and one day ago, our new President delivered a great inaugural address ... which I believe is a great blueprint for the future," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. "With swift and bold action today, we are doing just that -- with this vote today, we are taking America in a new direction."

Repubs say nay

So much for bipartisanship.

Does anyone know yet where and how these jobs will be created? If it's within the government, we're screwed.

Good. The stimulus contains very little which would actually stimulate anything, it's a minimal amount of tax savings (which, admittedly in this economy is going to be saved/used to pay off debt and not spent, but that will fix some problems as well), a relatively small amount of infrastructure building, and aside from that just trying to frontload all the government spending programs that Dems have been dreaming of for years into one bill before there is time for opposition to gather to them. The idea was that this was the time to get all those proposals that used to be pipe-dreams passed and call it a "stimulus". My hope is that the Senate GOP will filibuster this collection of garbage if the Senate version comes out anything like the House version.

From a political standpoint though, there's nothing to lose in voting against it. The remaining GOP members of the House are for the most part from districts that are going to be Red no matter what, so go back to the fiscal responsibility platform of being a Conservative and make the Democrats own this bill. When it fails and only increases the national debt with no results to show they won't be able to say "we tried our best!" because the entire GOP caucus can now say "we saw that it was just a load of pork, why couldn't you?".

And there was never going to be bipartisanship with comments like "I won." and "Beat me over the head all you want with it, I don't think we're going to compromise on that." Obama went to the Hill and talked to Republicans, but did absolutely nothing to address their concerns, that's not exactly bipartisan. A good first step towards bipartisanship for the White House would be to start either reeling in or distancing themselves from Nutty Nancy though.

ETA: And my thoughts on what would work? Some actual infrastructure spending (as in building things that will be useful later, not just dumping money into entitlement programs), some housing assistance, increased unemployment funding, and one hell of a cut on the corporate tax rate for a period of 3-5 years. Why? Because then companies can use money they would be paying in taxes to keep around more of their workers and buy capital. Those things create wealth, because more people with jobs buy more things, more capital lets things be made more efficiently, and then you get a cycle going. People who feel secure in their job can spend, which gives more money to corporations who can invest it in people and capital again since they don't have to pay nearly as much of it away to taxes the next year either. The companies in rough financial situations can use the tax savings to pay back some debt, which means banks are taking money back in from somewhere other than just the Fed and have money to lend again which starts unfreezing the credit markets. And in my opinion it wouldn't hurt to suspend the capital gains tax for a year. Yes the benefit would be primarily to higher income people, but folks watch the Dow to tell them how the economy is doing and nothing would get money out of essentially 0 yield government bonds and into stocks faster than suspending the capital gains tax.

Does anyone know if they attached the collegiate housing and infrastructure act to this? It was seeking to make donations to fraternity and sorority housing corporations tax deductible.

If the rest of the Dems were smart enough to vote against the bill, there will be bipartisan support.

Wow that will stimulate the economy.

heh!!

May keep a few beer companies in business.

I could see that having a positive impact on the economy. More donations toward house funds=more home improvements for thousands of fraternity and sorority houses across the country.

Exactly what I was thinking......

preciousjeni, Yes, we are screwed as most of the bills money is outlined for government programs.....oh and did I mention all the pork attached?

This is a greek message board, right? Its kind of shitty to see people on here dump on greeks.

Honestly, I pretty much ignore most of what comes out of the House because it's often completely nutty no matter who writes the bill. It's way more partisan than the Senate. Look for some changes in the Senate version.

CrackerBarrel, for the most part I agree with you.

Bipartisanship doesn't mean "vote for something stupid because the majority says so". In my opinion, the 11 Democrats who didn't vote by party, but by some other factor (which may or may not have been conscience or the wishes of those they represent) are the ones to be admired -- not those who vote by party lines.

PhiGam, to point out that this doesn't belong in a general financial stimulus package designed to resolve a national crisis isn't dumping on Greeks. It might be a good thing for Greeks but it doesn't belong in this bill now if there's any truth at all to the idea that this is in fact a response to a specific crisis rather than an attempt to justify any federal spending or any tax breaks people have previously wanted to see.

AGDee, it may have some effect, but there are a whole lot more pressing problems and more direct methods. The same idea that you advanced could be said for tax exempting all income spent in the construction industry, but we're not seeing that.

It's really hard for me to see why the federal government would need to incentivize spending on Greek housing, even if I personally could benefit from it (assuming I had any money to give right now which I don't.) Yes, I love Greek groups but, to me, only our specific philanthropic groups rightly belong in the charitable giving category. We just aren't principally charitable groups; we even define ourselves as private social organizations and I expect our internal spending would show it. What percentage of a chapters expenses goes toward programing and philanthropy vs. socials, recruitment, membership materials, gifts for members? If we really were private charities, we'd look terrible. ETA: I realize that there are other kinds of tax exempt groups, but I don't think we ought to go down that path for a lot of reasons.

I think we are all screwed. The stimulus is not going to create the jobs and we are going to be stuck paying the bills.


I think most of the government economists are morons. Wasn't this problem created by easy credit, people spending money(mostly on homes) that they really could not afford? Now the government's solution is to pump money into the banking system so there is more credit so people start spending. What good is that going to do if the people spending still can't afford to repay the loans?

We should have bit the bullet right from the start. The stimulus is just going to prolong the inevetable.

Just because you are greek doens't make you special.