Stealing from the Poor to Give to the Rich

by Leigh Graham · 2009-02-12 08:03:00 UTC
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Go immediately to ProPublica and check out the differences between the House and Senate versions of the stimulus bill that went to conference yesterday (H/t).  As you'll recall the House bill goes to the Senate, which then marks it up and votes on their own version.  So you'll see that the Senate removed $27B for aid and programs that would have directly benefited low-income households and added $76B in tax cuts - including over $117B for individual tax cuts aimed at affluent families.  The Senate also threw in almost $6B for homeland security and nuclear weapons, and cutting slightly more than that for transit, highways and bridges.  This visualization tool is also really illuminating.

ProPublica is a pretty cool site, and has a ShovelWatch project in partnership with WNYC, which "[tracks] the stimulus from bills to building."

They and the NY Times have more on the final stimulus bill that Congress agreed on yesterday, which has about $150B for infrastructure and almost $300B in tax cuts, a one-time payment of $250 for SS and SSI recipients, and is far smaller at $789 B than the $2.5 trillion plan for bailing out banks.

Many on the left, including myself, are really disappointed in this bill, and in President Obama.  How do you feel about the outcome?

Leigh Graham
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