Obama Stimulus Package Details

President Obama spent more than two hours in closed-door meetings with Congressional Republicans on Tuesday afternoon, outlining his economic stimulus plan and fielding an array of critical questions, before he urged legislators to “put politics aside and do the American people’s business right now.”

Economists think the stimulus plan that the House of Representatives will vote on Wednesday, while far from perfect, will help stimulate the moribund U.S. economy.

“The statistics every day underscore the urgency of the economic situation,” Mr. Obama said, speaking to reporters between separate meetings with House and Senate Republicans. “The American people expect action.”

Several Republicans said they would like the tax cuts to move more swiftly, according to people in the room, but the president replied that $275 billion was the most he would be willing to negotiate. The session stretched longer than an hour, with both sides conceding at several points that they have unwavable philosophical differences on many of the issues.

“We had a wonderful exchange of ideas and I continue to be optimistic about our ability to get this recovery package done to put people back to work,” Mr. Obama said

Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader, said after the meeting that significant philosophical differences remained between the president and the Republicans, but they also agreed on several fronts. The mere fact of the meeting, he said, was an early sign of a willingness by the White House to solicit input from all sides.

Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the No. 2 Republican in the House, said much of the spending in the legislation “may be laudable in,” but added that it “has no place in the stimulus bill, which ought to be focused like a razor on the preservation, protection and creation of jobs.”

Representative Mike Pence of Indiana, the chairman of the Republican conference, called the meeting a “cordial, substantive and vigorous” dialogue with the president.

The White House has signaled its willingness to make at least some changes, with Mr. Obama on Monday urging Democrats to strike the portion of the legislation that calls for spending $200 million on family planning for low-income people. But it remained an open question how much the president would be willing to change the signature proposal of his term, which could also create a conflict with Ms. Pelosi and other Democrats.

The stimulus is just out of the park, even the tax cut portion. We've got new tax credits for solar water heaters, wind energy and geothermal pumps, for businesses and homeowners. We've got new tax credit bonds that will go to municipalities for schools, housing weatherization, alternative energy, transit and more. Businesses will get credits for hiring veterans and disconnected youths, for energy retrofitting, bonus depreciation and more. The recently unemployed can get up to 65% of their COBRA health premium paid, and the unemployed under 200% of poverty can apply for Medicaid. There are 27 major tax cut or credit provisions, fully itemized here

The spending portion is generous as well, much more generous than some on the left would have you believe. Let's remember, this isn't our annual budget, which is usually half this amount and mostly defense spending. This is a supplemental really, and actually puts a lot of money into projects that have been neglected for years. As President Obama said in Saturday's address, "it's a plan that will save or create three to four million jobs over the next few years, and one that recognizes both the paradox and the promise of this moment - the fact that there are millions of Americans trying to find work even as, all around the country, there's so much work to be done."

The plan will lay down more than 3,000 miles of transmission lines to address that ailing electricity grid. Remember the biggest blackout in history? Yes, our President is actually going to address that, finally. The plan will generate the largest government revitalization project, making 75% of federal buildings more energy efficient. 10,000 schools will be modernized with state-of-the-art classrooms, libraries, and computer and science labs. 90 major ports will be secured and law enforcement will finally get the communications network they've been clamoring for since 9/11. To get a real sense of the scale, consider that $5 billion has been allocated to health care Research & Development, in comparison to $4 billion for the TOTAL Research & Development Budget for the sciences in 2008. This stimulus has $20 billion for science R&D, a monumental figure in comparison to recent years.

This package will go a long, long way to fulfilling a good number of President Obama's campaign promise, which it is important to remember as one of the reasons we elected him. He has the right ideas.

The president was accompanied at the meetings by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a longtime and respected Republican fixture in Congress, who retired from the House last year and was appointed to serve in the Obama cabinet