President Barack Obama is set to sign a $787 billion economic stimulus bill today, a move widely seen as a political victory for the new administration despite the legislation's lack of bipartisan support. The measure passed the Senate and House on Friday.
The package of federal tax cuts and spending is seen as the cornerstone of the Obama administration's plan for dealing with the recession. Nearly two-thirds of it consists of major spending initiatives, with the remaining funds going to various tax cuts.
The bill "will save or create more than 3.5 million jobs over the next two years, ignite spending by business and consumers alike and lay a new foundation for our lasting economic growth and prosperity," Obama said on Saturday in his weekly radio address.
Originally over $800 billion, the scaled-back version of the bill passed the House early Friday by a vote of 246 to 183 with no Republican support and seven Democrats voting against it. The stimulus passed the Senate that night by a vote of 60 to 38 with three Republicans voting for it and unanimous Democratic support.
The vast majority of Republicans in Congress have come out against the package, which many believe favors spending over tax cuts.
The bill includes funding for health care, energy, technology and education. Some of the tax cuts resemble those promised by Obama during the presidential campaign, including a tax credit for students paying tuition at post-secondary institutions like Tufts.
Among the major spending initiatives is more than $100 billion in funding for highways, bridges and other infrastructural projects for states. The bill also includes more than $42 billion for energy programs and investments and another $20 billion for creating "green" jobs.
Spending on education makes up a large part of the bill, too, despite being trimmed in order to garner necessary Republican votes in the Senate; the measure includes $39 billion toward state education funding.
Seventy-four percent of the money appropriated in the bill will be spent in the next 18 months, according to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office.
On Sunday, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) criticized the legislation, telling the Associated Press that it is "not bipartisan" and "anything but stimulative."
Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) accused Democrats of neglecting to read the entire bill, which is close to 1,100 pages long, saying it was more about spending than it was about job creation.
While many Democrats blame the Bush administration and deregulation for the economic crisis, Republicans tend to blame massive government spending as one of the primary causes for the downturn.
"Massive government spending on the heels of massive government spending is not going to solve our problems," Tufts Republicans President Michael Hawley said. "We're borrowing money from the future to finance our spending habits today ... At some point, somebody's going to have pay it back; that's where we run into problems."
Hawley strongly criticized the package in general.
"I think the bill is pretty much bad all around, and ... I'm very happy with the Republican Party for being pretty much down the line against it," Hawley, a sophomore, said. "I kind of feel like the Republican Party is starting to find its soul again."
On the other hand, like many congressional Democrats, Michael Goldman, a Democratic strategist and an affiliate of Tufts' political science department thinks the only real problem with the package is that it is not large enough.
"You are now experiencing an economics model that virtually nobody that you know has ever lived through," he said. "It is not yet a depression; it is a far greater economic crisis than anything that I've seen in my lifetime." Goldman added that he expects more large spending packages later this year.
Goldman said that if the bill is successful in stimulating the economy, Americans will likely look past the lack of Republican support. Even if the measures do not yield positive results quickly, he added, the general public will still support more similar spending initiatives in the future.
"If it's successful then the Democrats will get the credit," Goldman said, adding that current polling data shows that the public blames the Republicans for the crisis. "2010 may be an even bigger year for the Democrats than 2008 was."
