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To: Jack Hartmann who wrote (1733)	3/9/2002 9:57:50 AM
From: Didi	Respond to of 2505

The Post: "Senate Easily Approves Scaled-Back Stimulus Bill" washingtonpost.com "Video Roundtable-• The Post's Eilperin and Babington on the Stimulus Bill" washingtonpost.com =========================== >>>Senate Easily Approves Scaled-Back Stimulus Bill By Helen Dewar Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, March 9, 2002; Page A04 The Senate yesterday passed and sent to President Bush an economic stimulus bill that extends unemployment benefits and cuts taxes for businesses, ending a long and often bitter struggle over how to revive the economy just as it appears to be recovering on its own. The bill, scaled back and stripped of bigger tax cuts that had drawn opposition from Democrats, was approved 85 to 9. The House passed it 417 to 3 on Thursday, after GOP leaders gave up on a larger package with more tax cuts. The measure now goes to Bush, who had wanted more tax cuts but called the legislation a "very good bill" that he will be happy to sign. After five months of squabbling, lawmakers were eager to pass the bill before next week, when workers who lost jobs after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks will begin to exhaust their jobless benefits. Final passage coincided with mounting signs of economic recovery, including testimony Thursday by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan that an expansion is "well underway." "It is the irony of ironies that, once again, Congress, in trying to provide fiscal stimulus, has acted too late," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.). "Every single time we tried to do it, we have moved too late." But others, including Senate Republican Policy Committee Chairman Larry E. Craig (Idaho), argued that the bill could help pump up the recovery. It could transform "an economy that is recovering into a roaring recovery," he suggested. Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill said, "This legislation will add momentum so that we have a more robust economic recovery and return to full prosperity." The bill provides up to 13 weeks of additional unemployment benefits for those who have exhausted the current 26 weeks' worth, with longer payment of benefits in states with the highest jobless rates. It provides businesses with a 30 percent depreciation write-off of the value of new investments made during the next three years; permits small businesses to write off expenses more quickly; and offers tax incentives to invest in Lower Manhattan, site of the World Trade Center disaster. It would also extend several expiring tax breaks for a variety of activities, from overseas investments to production of electricity from wind, for two years. The bill is projected to pump $15 billion into the economy this year, most of it from the tax cuts. Earlier GOP proposals called for more than double the amount of tax relief, including a speedup of scheduled reductions in individual income tax rates and elimination of the minimum income tax for corporations. Republicans and Democrats had deadlocked over how to provide health coverage for laid-off workers, which the bill doesn't address. Eight of the nine senators who voted against the bill were Democrats: Robert C. Byrd (W.Va.), Thomas R. Carper (Del.), Conrad, Mark Dayton (Minn.), Christopher J. Dodd (Conn.), Russell Feingold (Wis.), Carl M. Levin (Mich.) and John D. "Jay" Rockefeller IV (W.Va.). Sen. Lincoln D. Chafee (R.I.) was the only Republican to vote against it. Several Democrats criticized the bill for excluding some of the priorities they had included in their last version of the bill. Some complained about the lack of help for states, most of which tie their corporate taxes to federal levies and thus will lose revenue at a time when their budgets are already strained. In addition, Rockefeller cited inclusion of corporate tax breaks and exclusion of an earlier proposal for a rebate for people who earned too little to qualify for last year's $300 tax refund. But Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) said it was "on balance . . . a vast improvement over what the Republicans and administration advocated originally." © 2002 The Washington Post Company <<<