http://thomas.loc.gov/home/approp/app09.html#h1
The bill and all of its changes in conference committee are up online. You can physically see in someone's horrible handwriting where the Senate and House differed, met in committee, and resolved the issue to eventually pass the bill. This thing has gone through the House and Senate TWICE in different iterations before being signed by the exec, this is hardly a secretive or shadily passed piece of legislation.
The final bill, the 1400 page fucker full of the changes that were made from the first senate passing was not put online (or even into the hands of congressman aside from the privileged) till the wee hours of the morning of the DAY the house and senate went through it's second vote. Democrats and Republicans a like were miffed with the fact that an order they passed themselves that would allow 3 days of reading time for the bill was ignored for due to a few people's vacation plans and Obama's supposed screams for urgency. The 3 days would have changed nothing, considering the next 4 days Obama was having an extended weekend.
I sure fucking didn't read it. I think I got to page 60 by the time it passed. Somewhere around page 80 I just gave up. After witnessing 1400 pages allowed 90 minutes of debate, I lost my will.
Ill regarded by who? It passed 246-183 in the House and 60-38 in the Senate.
I think you answered your own question there.
That's how economics works folks, a stimulus bill is by necessity a spending bill. Sure, at an individual level it is better to spend than save, but speaking on a macroeconomic level saving during this serious recession will kill our economy.
Spending yes... but extreme increases in government spending (AMONG OTHER THINGS) of money we don't have? I thought we learned how bad that idea was the first time around. Or the second time... OH WAIT THIRD TIMES THE CHARM.
Again, welcome to American politics, the PRESIDENT has a signing ceremony to pass the largest spending bill in history, yet you think this is worse than Republican grandstanding during the past two weeks purposefully delaying the bill is fine because it went largely under the radar.
Let's celebrate the still compounding massive debt our future will have to pay off, with not even the slightest guarantee that this will have any effect. Sounds great!
I don't even know what this means. The stimulus bill NEEDED TO BE PASSED! Do you not understand that if a Republican had been in the Oval Office a stimulus bill would still have been passed? This is an unprecedented American economic crisis which obviously calls for unprecedented measures. Republicans are the ones who hoping, only for political gain, that the stimulus fails and the economy goes even further into the shitter so that they look good for the 2010 midterms and beyond. Republicans will only gain at the expense of the American economy, and they are hoping for it!
A completely stimulus bill would have been passed. And NO ONE but the obamanator would have been on TV EVERY FUCKING NIGHT telling us how we're doomed without his plan. That his plan is the saving grace of all. And that we will face the fire and brimstone a poor man without it. That's called fear-mongering.
I don't believe republicans are hoping for economic collapse for political gain. Granted, I can sure see how some might be thinking of it in the dark corner of their mind after the way they were treated in congress over the last month. They offered hundreds of alternatives and various amendments that were extremely viable in the context of the bill that were ignored or played off as "wasting time", after being asked for their input in a bipartisan manner. That's why you saw 3 total congressional republicans vote for the bill.
I'm sick the economy. I'm going hippy.
