Breaking: Possible Stimulus Deal Reached; 780 Billion Dollars

[Munin]

WASHINGTON (AP) - Amid stunning new job losses and yet another bank failure, key senators and the White House reached tentative agreement Friday night on an economic stimulus measure at the heart of President Barack Obama's recovery plan. Two officials said the emerging agreement was for a bill with a $780 billion price tag, but there was no immediate confirmation.
The tentative agreement capped a tense day of back room negotiations in which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, joined by White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, sought to attract the support of enough Republicans to give the measure the needed 60-vote majority.

Officials strongly suggested that Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's vote would be needed to assure passage. The Massachusetts Democrat, battling a brain tumor, has been in Florida in recent days and has not been in the Capitol since suffering a seizure on Inauguration Day more than two weeks ago. The senator's office did not comment.

Reid met privately in the Capitol with members of his rank-and-file to present the proposed deal.

At $780 billion, the legislation would be smaller than the measure that cleared the House on a party-line vote last week. It also would mean a sharp cut from the bill that has been the subject of Senate debate for a week. That measure stood at $937 billion.

Beyond the numbers, though, any agreement would mark a victory for the new president and would keep Democratic leaders on track to fulfill their promise of delivering him a bill to sign by the end of next week.

Earlier Friday, Obama said further delay would be "inexcusable and irresponsible" given the worst monthly jobs report in a generation—598,000 positions lost in January and the national unemployment rate rising to 7.6 percent. Late in the day federal regulators announced the closure of First Bank Financial Services in Georgia, the seventh failure this year of a federally insured bank.

At the Capitol, the tension was thick.

...


Officials say tentative stimulus deal reached

 

[Munin]

http://www.usmessageboard.com/curre...al-reached-on-stimulus-package-in-senate.html

Sorry, my mistake

 

[auditor0007]

Wasn't Bush constantly blasted for running the deficit to record levels? I understand the need to put money into the banking system, although I'm not certain that this has been done in a good way, but why is it that creating record deficits is now the answer to our problems? These deficits are going to make the Bush deficits look like a small budget overrun.

 

[editec]

I am informed that much of the money cut is cut from edcuation.

Now my first thought was "typical" and I was angered by that.

But then, upon more reflections, it occurred to me that about the only industries with pricing which is NOT deflating are edcuation and health care.

While these cuts from the bailout might actually negitively effect me, personally, I find myself thinking that they may have been the right things to cut back on.

As usual, I reserve the right to suspend final judgement until I can actually find the details of the plan.

 

[Mad Scientist]

Wasn't Bush constantly blasted for running the deficit to record levels? I understand the need to put money into the banking system, although I'm not certain that this has been done in a good way, but why is it that creating record deficits is now the answer to our problems? These deficits are going to make the Bush deficits look like a small budget overrun.

Obama ran for office as a tax cutter. "95% of you will get a tax cut under my plan".
But now he calls tax cuts "failed Bush policies".

Anyone else ready for a tax revolt?

 

[editec]

Wasn't Bush constantly blasted for running the deficit to record levels? I understand the need to put money into the banking system, although I'm not certain that this has been done in a good way, but why is it that creating record deficits is now the answer to our problems? These deficits are going to make the Bush deficits look like a small budget overrun.

Obama ran for office as a tax cutter. "95% of you will get a tax cut under my plan".
But now he calls tax cuts "failed Bush policies".

Anyone else ready for a tax revolt?

Our tax structure has been revolting for years.

It's far more revolting now than it was 40 years ago.

But apparently it's been working out real well for about 10% of us.

Lucky them, eh?

 

[Old Rocks]

Wasn't Bush constantly blasted for running the deficit to record levels? I understand the need to put money into the banking system, although I'm not certain that this has been done in a good way, but why is it that creating record deficits is now the answer to our problems? These deficits are going to make the Bush deficits look like a small budget overrun.

Obama ran for office as a tax cutter. "95% of you will get a tax cut under my plan".
But now he calls tax cuts "failed Bush policies".

Anyone else ready for a tax revolt?

Our tax structure has been revolting for years.

It's far more revolting now than it was 40 years ago.

But apparently it's been working out real well for about 10% of us.

Lucky them, eh?

Yep, Ol' Bushie's base. And the rest of us can just eat cake.

 

[Munin]

Wasn't Bush constantly blasted for running the deficit to record levels? I understand the need to put money into the banking system, although I'm not certain that this has been done in a good way, but why is it that creating record deficits is now the answer to our problems? These deficits are going to make the Bush deficits look like a small budget overrun.

Bush didn't spend as a result of an bad economic situation, it was the other way around: his spending resulted in a bad economic situation.

Now in this case we have a bad economic situation where nobody spends money and to get people spending again the government needs to stimulate the economy with spending so americans will spend again: ironically the reason that everyone doesn't spend is because nobody spends (buying will generate income for someone else that will then again make him buy something if he can depend on other people buying things from his company).

Good point, the deficits are going over the top but if the economy recovers it will be worth the investment if we can save the structures of our economy (banks, ...). The costs that mass bankruptcy of banks, big car companies, ... would generate will be multiple times bigger then the money that is now spend to maintain those companies. The thing is that some companies become to be so big that they become to be essential for the working of an economy. Like for example if you have the biggest bank of the world, a huge part of the world will depend on it financially and when such a bank falls it drags everyone with it. (Lehman brothers) It is kind of like when a big ship sinks, it can drag other smaller ships that are near it with it underwater.

That is the problem with big companies, they become to be so big that they begin to think that they themselves have become indispensable. And that is usually when things begin to go wrong. Ever wondered what would happen if Microsoft went bankrupt? We would all be screwed.

Well this is the economy bail out, because of some big companies that screwed up and because of China abusing the US (import/export balance of the US) by manipulating both the Chinese currency and the US currency (by buying US debt).


I know it does not make sense to spend, because the reason for this economic bad situation is because people have spend more then they earned. But economically it makes sense, everyone needs to spend: they just don't need to spend more then they earn. For a government in this case it is an exception because other people jobs depend on the spending of the government. And the entire economy can recover as a result of this spending: it can create a snowball effect of spending and ones mans spending is another mans income. And because the income of the government depends on the economy, the government itself will be much better of too.