Stimulus package clears House; Republicans vote no
By BRETT ROLLER Staff writer
WASHINGTON D. C. - Just eight days after President Barack Obama spoke of the need for swift action to stimulate the economy in his inauguration ceremony, the house voted to pass the $819 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 Wednesday, Jan. 29. The final vote was 244 for the bill and 188 against it will now be sent to the Senate for approval. All 177 House Republicans and 11 Democrats voted against the bill, saying it did not provide enough jobs for the money being spent.
"(The bill) that passed by the House tonight will do precious little to help our economy recover," Congresswoman Jean Schmidt said. "Quite simply the bill was a reckless excuse for spending in the name of a real emergency and provides very little stimulus."
The Congresswoman's Communications Director Bruce Pfaff said in a phone interview Thursday the bill created jobs at a cost of $300,000 per job.
"We can only get that much out of this amount of money?" Pfaff said. "At the end of the day when our children and their children pay this money back it's going to be $1.1 trillion in spending. That's with the interest on the $819 billion and that's a Congressional Budget Office number, that's not a Republican number."
Many Republicans criticized the bill for the number of "pet projects" in the bill such as $335 million in sexually transmitted disease prevention. The bill also allocates $1 billion for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to be used for habitat restoration, purchasing satellites and other climate monitoring systems to establish climate data records. The NOAA will also receive $1.4 million for climate data modeling. The bill provides $600,000 for the purchase of electric and alternative fuel cars for government fleets.
"That's a noble idea, but is that really what we should be working on?" Pfaff said of the fleet vehicles. "There should have been more tax cuts that would have helped real people. There could have been more spending on items that really matter to people."
Ohio Congressman and Minority Leader John Boehner called the vote "a bipartisan rejection of a partisan bill."
"House Republicans want to work with congressional Democrats on legislation that fulfills the goal set by President Obama: crafting a bipartisan plan focused on job creation," Boehner said. "Unfortunately, the trillion dollar government spending bill before the House today was not that plan, and a bipartisan coalition of Members rightfully rejected it."
The bill will go to the Senate next week where it will be discussed. The Senate will need to work with Republicans and Independents to pass their version of the bill because of their slim majority. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she fully expects a final version of the bill to be on President Obama's desk by mid-February.
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