American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 Senate Version

Well, here it is.. the draft of the Senate Stimulus Bill.. H. R. 1 all 778 pages of it. They sure don't make it easy.

It is still about the same amount of money as the House bill, $827 billion as opposed to $820 Billion but is weighed more to tax cuts.

Discretionary funds governed by the Senate Appropriations Committee are cut by about $83 billion, a 23 percent reduction that includes a $40 billion cut from a state fiscal stabilization program and the virtual elimination of a $19.5 billion public school and higher education construction program opposed by Republicans.

One of the last decisions was to strike $5.8 billion in public health funds to fight preventable diseases. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) was the driving force in making this cut, but elsewhere, she was also a force in adding $870 million for community health centers.

Within the Senate Finance Committee, about $7 billion in savings would be achieved from spending programs and $18 billion from tax changes.

The savings include $2 billion from the president’s health information technology initiative. Another $5 billion would be achieved by scaling back subsidies promised under a new initiative to help workers maintain their employer-provided health insurance when cut from company payrolls.

The conference negotiating process, which will include members from the House, Senate & White House, is setting up to be long and possibly contentious at times. Hopes of having the bill on Obama’s desk by President’s Day next Monday appear to be quickly fading. Once the conference committee has crafted a compromise, both the House and Senate will have to take one final vote to approve the package.

So, there it is. If you want to try to read it again. I posted the differences yesterday. That's a link to the same comparison just a different site if you want to look at it again.

I think it is like Sen. McCaskill and some of the others have said, better something than nothing. It may not be perfect but at least there it is. She said earlier that some of the things that weren't in this could be pushed through in appropriations and budgets, so we will just have to hold them to it.

Hopefully, they will get this passed quickly and things will start to turn around. Others are starting to notice that the republicans are just obstructing...they have no real objections to this, they are just objecting to object. It's all about winning back the House and Senate in 2010. So, document, keep track and remember all of this, because when the elections come up next year, it will be time to work hard for the Democratic party. We can't let them take over after what they have done this time.

We just can't.