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Mc Cain
Leads GOP charge against Obama
Stimulus Program
WASHINGTON (By Sharon Otterman,
NYTimes) January 26, 2009
—
Senator McCain, who lost the
presidential election to Mr. Obama
in November, said he planned to
vote no on the Obama Stimulus Bill
unless the bill was changed.
Speaking on Fox News Sunday, McCain
said, "At least two Republicans will
need to approve the bill for a
filibuster-proof majority vote of
60."
“We need to make tax cuts permanent, and
we need to make a commitment
there’ll be no new taxes,” Mr. McCain
said. “We need to cut payroll taxes. We
need to cut business taxes.”
“We need to have a commitment after
a couple of quarters of G.D.P. growth
we will embark on a path,” he said
about the gross domestic product, “to
reduce spending to get our budget in
balance.”
Republicans plan to test President
Obama’s commitment to bipartisanship as
his $825 billion stimulus package heads
to the floor of the House of
Representatives this week, with the
House Republican leader saying Sunday
morning many in his party will vote
no unless there are significant changes
to the plan.
“Right now, given the concerns we
have over the size of this package and
all of the spending in this package, we
don’t think it’s going to work,” the
House Minority Leader John A. Boehner,
Republican of Ohio, said on NBC’s “Meet
the Press.” “And so if it’s the plan
I see today, put me down in the no
column.”
The Republican objections came as
President Obama dispatched his top
economic adviser, Lawrence H. Summers,
to the talk shows to defend aspects of
the plan that have come under attack.
More details about the stimulus package,
the largest of its kind in the nation’s
history, have become clear this weekend,
as Democrats released a more detailed
list of the spending.
Speaking on “Meet the Press,” Mr.
Summers, director of the White House’s
National Economic Council, said the
president was attempting to strike a
balance between tax cuts and longer-term
initiatives in the bill, like spending
on renewable energy and college tuition
assistance.
President Obama has pledged
three-quarters of the fund will be spent
out in the first 18 months, Mr. Summers
said in defense of the plan.
“We believe this is a properly
sized approach to move the economy
forward,” he said.
He also said there might be
additional assistance to banks beyond
the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief
Program already approved by Congress. Of
Mr. Obama’s plans for how the next $350
billion of TARP funding will be spent,
he said, “It’s going to be very
different than what you’ve seen so far,”
with an emphasis on transparency,
accountability, and “getting credit
flowing again.”
“The next few months are, no question,
going to be very, very difficult and it
may be longer than that,” Mr. Summers
said.
Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said
on Sunday he believed the
stimulus package would ultimately pass
with “fairly strong vote across the
board.” “If you notice, roughly 40
percent of this entire package is tax
cuts,” the vice president said on “Face
the Nation.” “That’s not what the
Democrats wanted. And 60 percent of it
is spending, economic stimulus. That’s
not what the Republicans wanted. But
we’ve come a pretty long way already. So
there will be, I’m sure, more
compromise.”
Mr. Boehner and other Republicans have
taken issue with the large chunk of
funding in the stimulus package — some
$300 billion all told — that will go to
shore up the budgets of states. That
figure includes billions in state aid to
education and such controversial pieces
as millions in spending for
family-planning initiatives.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, speaking on
ABC’s “This Week,” said the
assistance to states was necessary,
including the family-planning funds.
“The family-planning services reduce
cost,” she said. “The states are in
terrible fiscal budget crisis now, and
part of it, what we do for children’s
health, education, and some of those
elements, are to help the states meet
their financial needs.”
She also said House Democrats would
consider Republican ideas, judging them
“by their ability to create jobs, to —
to help turn the economy around, to
stabilize the economy, and to see how
much they cost.”
Ms. Pelosi said if additional
government funding to banks is required,
the government should take an equity
stake in banks that receive the funds so
taxpayers could share in any gains as
banks return to health.
If Congress is strengthening the banks,
she said, “then the American people
should get some of the upside of that
strengthening.” But the House Speaker
repeatedly objected to the term
“nationalization” in describing the
government investments.
“Change has to happen in terms of what
is done — what the transparency of it
is, what the accountability of it is,”
she said. “Only then would we be able to
pass any additional funding.”
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