Stimulus Bill Clears Both Houses

By Kevin Robinson in News on Feb 12, 2009 3:20PM

After a long night of congressional aides and clerks working on the specifics and minutiae of the bill, as well as assurances from three key Republicans in the Senate - Arlin Specter of Pennsylvania, and Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced yesterday afternoon that the House and the Senate had reached a compromise on the Obama administration's centerpiece economic recovery bill. “Like any negotiation, this involved give-and-take, and if you don’t mind my saying so, that’s an understatement,” Reid said.

The reconciliation bill scaled back the price tag to under $800 billion, and targets more than a quarter of the bill directly to tax cuts, although the legislation will still have a massive impact on infrastructure and health care spending, as well as tax policy and state spending. The mix of tax and spending cuts is also expected to draw some of the more moderate Republicans and conservative Democrats to support the bill that they initially voted against.

The goal now is to have the bill filed in time get a full vote and have the bill on Obama's desk in time for President's Day.

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite