Senate agrees on Stimulus

MSNBC's "1600 Pennsylvania avenue" is reporting that the Senate has reached an agreement on the Stimulus package. Apparently most of the bill has been agreed upon and the bill will shortly pass. Things may not, however, be as good as they seem.

MSNBC's "1600 Pennsylvania avenue" is reporting that the Senate has reached an agreement on the Stimulus package. Apparently most of the bill has been agreed upon and the bill will shortly pass. Things may not, however, be as good as it seems.

The Senate apparently agreed to 780 billion. Which falls far short of the 900 plus billion that was proposed and less than the 800 billion minimum that Obama called for.

The bad news here is that many economists - most notably Paul Krugman - think the stimulus should be far larger than even the proposed 900 billion that was originally put forward in the Senate. And this makes sense, without funding to create jobs, people will not earn money and therefore not spend it . .. crushing the economy.

The crucial question is what has been cut from the bill in this compromise? Objectors to the stimulus bill have primarily wished to excise funding in it for health and education. If this is what was cut we have seen a great failure of legislation. In particular, health care cost are killing our economy, and if health care funding is dropped things simply cannot improve.

But whatever was cut, we can be sure it will not be for our benefit and will hinder rather than help our struggling economy.

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