Today in Washington D. C. - Feb 12, 2009

The Senate and House will recess 11:30 AM- 1 PM for a ceremony in the Rotunda marking the 200th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s birth. President Barack Obama will speak at the event. Final language on the conference report for the economic stimulus legislation (H.R. 1) may be filed sometime today. However, with the confusion at hand, expect the Senate or House vote to be delayed.

As the Democrats’ bloated stimulus legislation limps to the finish line in the next two days it’s become clear that congressional Democrats have spent a great deal of their political capital pushing through a flawed bill that will boost American debt more than American jobs. Roll Call addressed the latest troubles Democrats had in putting the final bill together. And Politico features a couple stories on the squabbles between House and Senate Democrats over the conference report. (It’s another tale of the titles: “Did Reid roll Pelosi?” and “Leading liberals clash during Dem meeting.”)

Roll Call quotes a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid acknowledging that Republicans bested Democrats in the battle to define the bill for the public. Roll Call writes, “[Reid spokesman Rodell] Mollineau added that the effects of the bill would vindicate Democrats. ‘They haven’t won the message war. They’ve only won the message battle.’ In fact, Republicans proved less cowed by their election losses than Democrats had believed, and they defined the bill as laden with pork-barrel spending before Democrats really had a chance to rebuff them.”

Certainly, Democrats assisted this mightily by crafting a stimulus bill that was not timely, nor temporary, nor targeted. The problems started with the CBO determining that the money in the bill would not be spent quickly, and continued with Democrats prioritizing government spending over tax cuts and then stuffing the bill with questionable projects. Indeed, a Democrat aide said that Democrats and the Obama administration “rel[ied] too much on the committees and the committees wanted to pork it up.”

And even with the bill entering the end game, the same problems persist, despite changes made in the Senate and conference committee. The Wall Street Journal reported today, “The latest version of the economic-stimulus package is expected to provide less near-term support for the economy and make it less likely that the economy will pull itself out of recession before late this year. . . . Reducing the payroll-tax cut for workers by about 20% -- to $400 per individual or $800 per family -- also diminishes another element that was expected to help the economy in the first half of this year.” According to the AP, the tax cut won’t begin to show up until June and would appear “as an extra $13 a week in take-home pay, falling to about $8 a week next January.”

And we learn today about another pet project in the bill. AP reports: “In late-stage talks, Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., pressed for $8 billion to construct high-speed rail lines, quadrupling the amount in the bill that passed the Senate on Tuesday. Reid's office issued a statement noting that a proposed Los Angeles-to-Las Vegas rail might get a big chunk of the money.”

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell pointed out again today that when it comes to deficit spending, this is only the beginning: “This week, Congressional Democrats are handing taxpayers a bill for $1.2 trillion. Soon, they’ll spend $400 billion to finish up spending from last year. We’re being told to get ready for untold hundreds of billions for the financial industry. Since taking over Congress and the White House, Democrats have been making up for lost time with a government spending spree on the taxpayer credit card. Even without this massive spending bill, the deficit continues to grow. Yesterday, Treasury reported that in the first four months of the current fiscal year the deficit rose to $569 billion— nearly $500 billion more than the same period the previous year. . . . In my view, and in the view of my Republican colleagues, this is not the smart approach. The taxpayers of today and tomorrow will be left to clean up the mess.”

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