Is the Stimulus Package Too Watered Down to Get Us Anywhere?

By John Nichols, TheNation.com
Posted on February 11, 2009, Printed on February 11, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/126320/

Skeptical citizens might inquire: How does a Senate stimulus bill that was trimmed to eliminate "waste" (like school construction money that would create jobs in communities across the country) and "pork" (like funding to prepare for a pandemic that would bring a sputtering economy to a complete halt) end up costing almost $20 billion more than a supposedly spendthrift House plan?

The answer, of course, is that the tepid stimulus plan passed Tuesday by the Senate with a "bipartisan" 61-37 majority was not trimmed down to hold the line on spending. It was restructured to cut stimulus allocations by $108 million while dramatically increasing tax cuts -- at the behest of Republican Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and the Democrats with whom these alleged moderates cut a deal to pass the stalled bill.