Posted on 10/13/2008 1:49:25 PM PDT by BGHater
House Democratic leaders on Monday announced a broad economic recovery package aimed at the middle class that they say needs to be enacted in the wake of the Wall Street rescue bill.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) led a meeting of almost a dozen top House Democrats and about as many economists on Monday morning. She said the group coalesced around a general economic recovery package aimed at aiding states, extending unemployment insurance benefits, investing in transportation and infrastructure, and perhaps providing a new round of tax rebate checks.
Pelosi said the package would be hammered out after various committees hold hearings in the coming weeks, adding that it may well exceed the $61 billion economic stimulus package that the House recently passed. That measure stalled in the Senate.
“We plan to go forward expeditiously but not hastily,” Pelosi said.
The Speaker did not answer directly whether or not she will convene a lame-duck session of Congress following the Nov. 4 elections but indicated that it is a possibility.
“We will have the hearings and we’ll see what they yield,” she said. “We stand ready to take action when we are ready to do so.”
House Democrats and their economic consultants have been in direct contact with the campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) over the crafting of the proposal, and are already in agreement on its overall theme: a recovery for the rest of the economy, outside of Wall Street.
“This one needs to be entirely a rescue for ordinary people, so it will benefit those, primarily the homeowners, and people who are losing their jobs or who have lost their jobs, and cities and states and towns, so they don’t have to cut spending, raise taxes, and lay off workers in a recession,” said Robert Kuttner, co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect magazine and distinguished senior fellow of the think tank Demos. “All of us in the room gave essentially variations on that same advice.”
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said House Democrats received “unified advice and counsel” from their economic advisors, who besides Kuttner included former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Levitt and former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers.
“In many ways, this is the economic challenge of our lifetime,” Hoyer said. But he and Pelosi also argued that the crisis presents Congress with “tremendous opportunities.”
Free pie, where does the line start?
The old Soviet Union didn’t fail, it just ran out of money.
I smell bacon...
Any package they like vote no on...... Its time to throw the Rats. out.
Only thing printed money stimulates is politicians’ careers and ego.
Nothing like counting your chickens before they hatch.
FREE MONEY!!!!
i thought it was a chicken in every pot....
Look for a mere 300 trillion, they can make us all millionaires! Wouldn’t that be grand?
Oh yippee a stimulas check....that should get me another new pair of earrings.
and time it so the checks arrive just before the inauguration . . . . . assuming the right guy is winning.
The democrats seem to think this is a winner for them.... I say it’s a loser. I, for one, am sick of them handing out our money like it’s candy... I don’t think I’m alone.
Ms. 9% wants to lead the USA into the new era of Zimbabwe like inflation.
Here comes the Wiemar Republic.......print the cash we’ll worry about the debt later...........
yah! money! wait...is this a grand thing before or after they take several grand outta my hide?
The best stimulus, bar none, is just an old fashioned across the board federal income tax cut. I’m sick of tax policy being used in pursuit of some kind of socialist utopia.
Socialism run amok! At least McCain knows how to cut spending...
A market killer.
The socialist Democrats want to tinker with a broken system. They like the opportunity to use the tax code to play god, favoring some and punishing others. It’s socialist engineering. The solution is to abolish the federal income tax and replace it with a national sales tax. Get rid of the IRS.
Gas
Tax
Holiday
What! No bullets? Yer gonna be sorry :<(
LOL! them peeps on something much stronger:)
Hey pig losi & reid, if there is that much EXTRA money to give away, why didn’t you let us keep it in the first place?
Have you seen an update to the % required for a national sales tax? I’m curious as to how much the recent expansion of the federal budget has impacted the fairtax percentages. I bet it would be very depressing.....
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