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US lawmakers embrace 789 billion dollar stimulus
AFP - Thursday, February 12
WASHINGTON (AFP) - - US lawmakers agreed Wednesday to pump 789 billion dollars in tax cuts and spending into the sputtering US economy and were set to vote as early as Thursday to send the plan to President Barack Obama.
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Key senators, who worked with House members to resolve differences between the two chambers' rival versions of the stimulus legislation, were beaming as they announced Obama's biggest legislative success yet.
Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid hailed the "give and take" that had produced the compromise, which he promised would create some 3.5 million jobs and revive the world's largest engine of economic growth.
A final vote "will come within the next few days, maybe as early as tomorrow," said Reid, who declared that he had spoken minutes earlier with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and that she supported the new plan.
The compromise, aimed at digging the US economy out from under an avalanche of grim economic data, came in smaller than the Senate's version at 838 billion dollars and the House legislation at 819 billion.
Senator Susan Collins, one of the three swing-vote Republicans whose support was crucial to getting Obama's mammoth plan through the Senate, said the new bill totalled 789 billion dollars.
"Today we have shown that, working together, we can address the enormous economic crisis facing our country," he said.
Collins said the total included about 150 billion dollars in infrastructure projects, that 35 percent of the total went to tax relief, and billions more would help the 49 states that face deep cuts in services to meet legal requirements that they produce balanced budgets.
"We do not have the luxury of time," said Democratic Senator Daniel Inouye, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, warning: "We're a superpower. If we go down, there'll be chaos on this globe."
Supporters of the bill predicted passage before Obama's self-imposed February 16 deadline despite fierce opposition from Republicans, none of whom voted for the House measure and just three of whom helped shepherd the bill through the Senate.
"We're not going to get back to where our economy was overnight. But I think this represents the beginning of turning our economy around," said Independent Senator Joe Lieberman.
Obama's Republican critics, who have denounced the bill as bloated and lacking in tax cuts, called for the final legislation to be put online for 48 hours so the US public could read the text before it heads to a vote.
Obama, meanwhile, pursued an aggressive political and public relations blitz to win support from wavering lawmakers, trekking to a construction site in northern Virginia to tout what he called his "urgent" and "essential" plan.
"We've got to get a final version to my desk so that I can sign it," said the president, hoping for a big legislative win after his young presidency suffered a series of early setbacks.
Vice President Joe Biden was also to visit infrastructure construction projects to push for the measure, which includes tens of billions to build or fix key parts of the crumbling US network of roads, bridges, dams and levees.
But the decisive balancing act was in the marbled halls of the US Capitol, as the 10 negotiators sought to bolster job-creating parts of the package but keep the price tag at current levels in order not to lose a handful of Republicans who made the difference in the Senate's approval.
Three moderate Republicans -- Collins and her fellow Maine Senator Olympia Snowe, and Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter -- are key for the Democrats' reliable 58-vote bloc to push past the 60 votes needed to overrun any parliamentary delaying tactics.
Baucus said the "Buy American" restriction on stimulus dollars -- diluted but not banished by the Senate in the face of worries among key US trading partners like Canada and Europe -- had "not even come up."
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US President Barack Obama walks to the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC. US lawmakers struck agreement Wednesday on a compromise 789 billion dollar stimulus plan, and prepared to vote as early as Thursday to send the package to President Barack Obama.
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