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McCain: Stimulus Was A Bad Start For Obama's 'Bipartisanship'
February 16, 2009 10:07 a.m. EST
Kris Alingod - AHN Contributor
Washington, D.C. (AHN) - Republicans bashed President Barack Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus on Sunday, saying the President had repeatedly pledged before and after the election to increase transparency on Capitol Hill but had failed to do so in his first legislative victory.
"I do say, in all candor, that it was a bad beginning. It was a bad beginning because it wasn't what we promised the American people, what President Obama promised the American people, that we would sit down together," Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, said on CNN's "State of the Union."
"I appreciate the fact that the president came over and talked to Republicans. That's not how you negotiate a result. You sit down together in a room with competing proposals. Almost all of our proposals went down on a party line vote....This was not a bipartisan bill," McCain added.
"This was supposed to be a package that was going to create jobs. A lot of this package will not create jobs. A lot of the tax cuts we've tried before of just giving people some money, it hasn't changed the way that savings have been conducted by Americans," he also said.
Republicans say the President's stimulus is full of provisions that permanently expand federal programs. They also say it does not provide enough tax cuts and is full of wasteful spending such as $50 million provision for an arts endowment and $165 million for fish hatcheries.
The House had passed an $819 billion version last month with no Republican votes, and the Senate approved an $838 billion package narrowly by 61-37. On Friday, the two chambers passed the a final trimmed down $787 billion version, with the House GOP again united in opposing the measure, and Democrats in the Senate barely squeaking by the threshold to avoid Republican filibusters, 60-38.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) also told ABC's George Stephanopoulos on "This Week," "If this is going to be bipartisanship, the country's screwed...I know bipartisanship when I see it. I've participated in it. This is not 'change we can believe in.' You rammed it through the House. You started out with the idea of, 'we won, we write the bill.' The mark-up in the Senate took an hour and 40 minutes. What the AMT got to do with creating jobs?"
The AMT, or Alternative Minimum Tax, is a tax introduced nearly four decades ago for high-income earners. Because it was never indexed for inflation, the AMT is due to affect middle-class families unless legislation is put in place.
The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has said in a stimulus report card that the $69.8 billion AMT patch is "neither timely nor targeted" and "makes no sense as economic stimulus."
The stimulus also has an $800 tax credit for working families and an amendment to a law known as COBRA. The law lets an employee who is dismissed, keep his health coverage from his old company. The cost is usually at least $1,000 a month, but the stimulus requires the federal government to subsidize 65 percent of the cost for nine months.
In addition, $24.3 billion is devoted in the stimulus for "Americans hardest hit by the recession," according to a summary by the House Appropriations Committee. The amount includes $19.9 billion for additional food stamps, to increase the benefit by 13.6 percent.
For energy, investment totaling $37.5 billion include $4.5 billion in repairing federal buildings to make them energy efficient. The plan allocates a number of investments for transportation, including $27.5 billion for highway investments, $8.4 billion for public transportation, and $9.3 billion for rail transportation, including Amtrak, High Speed and Intercity Rail.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, appearing on CNN's "State of the Union" the same day as McCain, belied criticisms that passage of the stimulus had not been bipartisan.
"What you saw from this president was an unprecedented effort to reach out to Republicans. Not just in meetings at the White House, but you had the president drive up to Capitol Hill to meet with Republicans where they work. I think that was certainly unprecedented," he said.
"This president has always worked in a bipartisan fashion. He will continue to reach out to Republicans. We hope that Republicans will decide they want to reach back. We understand that nothing is going to get done in this country to improve the lives of the American people if the parties in Washington continue the same old game and continue to fight. Only by working together can we move this agenda forward," Gibbs added.
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