McCaul says ‘thumbs down' to Stimulus Legislation

As printed in the Brenham Banner-Press

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama, savoring his first major victory in Congress, said Saturday that newly passed $787 billion economic stimulus legislation marks a "major milestone on our road to recovery."

U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, however, said the bill is packed with "waste."
Speaking in his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama said, "I will sign this legislation into law shortly, and we’ll begin making the immediate investments necessary to put people back to work doing the work America needs done."

At the same time, he said, "This historic step won’t be the end of what we do to turn our economy around, but rather the beginning. The problems that led us into this crisis are deep and widespread, and our response must be equal to the task."

The bill passed Congress Friday on party-line votes, allowing Democratic leaders to deliver on their promise of clearing the legislation by mid-February. The bill passed the House by a 246-183 vote.

McCaul, who voted against the bill, said it is a spending package, not a stimulus bill.

"We cannot spend our way out of debt," said McCaul. "Yet thanks to the Democrats, we are now going to spend the equivalent of a million dollars a day for the next 3,000 years on a long wish list of items that won’t create jobs.

"While I do support some provisions of the bill such as the tax relief and investments in infrastructure, only 17 percent of the $1 trillion provides new tax relief and less than 10 percent provides new roads and bridges.

"The rest is pork. There’s simply not enough stimulus in this bill to give the economy the immediate jolt it needs."

Obama "now has a bill to sign that will create millions of good-paying jobs and help families and businesses stay afloat financially," said Sen. Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat who was a leading architect of the measure.

"It will shore up our schools and roads and bridges, and infuse cash into new sectors like green energy and technology that will sustain our economy for the long term," he added in a statement.

Hours earlier, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell offered a different prediction for a bill he said was loaded with wasteful spending.

"A stimulus bill that was supposed to be timely, targeted and temporary is none of the above," he said in remarks on the Senate floor. "And this means Congress is about to approve a stimulus that’s unlikely to have much stimulative effect."

In a struggle lasting several weeks, lawmakers in the two political parties both emphasized they wanted to pass legislation to revitalize the economy and ease frozen credit markets. But the plan that the administration and its allies eventually came up drew the support of only three Republicans in Congress — moderate Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

Their support was critical, though, in helping the bill squeak through the Senate on a vote of 60-38, precisely the number needed for passage. Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown cast the 60th vote in favor in a nearly deserted Senate, hours after the roll call began. He arrived after a flight aboard a government plane from Ohio, where he was mourning the death of his mother earlier in the week.

The legislation, among the costliest ever considered in Congress, provides billions of dollars to aid victims of the recession through unemployment benefits, food stamps, medical care, job retraining and more. Tens of billions are ticketed for the states to offset cuts they might otherwise have to make in aid to schools and local governments, and there is more than $48 billion for transportation projects such as road and bridge construction, mass transit and high-speed rail.

Democrats said the bill’s tax cuts would help 95 percent of all Americans, much of the relief in the form of a break of $400 for individuals and $800 for couples.

At the insistence of the White House, people who do not earn enough money to owe income taxes are eligible, an attempt to offset the payroll taxes they pay.

In a bow to political reality, lawmakers included $70 billion to shelter upper middle-class and wealthier taxpayers from an income tax increase that would otherwise hit them, a provision that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said would do relatively little to create jobs.

Also included were funds for two of Obama’s initiatives, the expansion of computerized information technology in the health care industry and billions to create so-called green jobs the administration says will begin reducing the country’s dependence on foreign oil.