Yesterday, I reported that $157 billion was the total amount of short-term stimulus Democrats were seeking in the two spending bills currently before congress (those two bills are an economic relief bill and a war supplemental bill). It turns out I undershot that by nearly $100 billion. The actual high-end potential stimulus of the stimulus is $253.5 billion.
First, here are the details on the economic relief bill. The Majority Whip has good detail on the contents of the bill, and the CBO has real detail on the amount of spending in the bill. By broad category, here are the spending provisions:
- Medicare and Medicaid: $85.046 billion
- Unemployment benefits: $48.635 billion
- Infrastructure: $25.623 billion
- Other spending: $14.729 (net)
This comes out to a total of just over $174 billion in spending. Additionally, the bill includes $23.696 billion in short-term extensions of tax cuts for non-wealthy Americans. This brings the overall, short-term “stimulus” in the bill to nearly $198 billion. However, due to the jobs it creates, and the tax loopholes it closes on certain corporations and wealthy individuals, the bill is projected to increase total federal tax revenues by $40 billion over the next ten years. On net, this results in a projected increase to the deficit of roughly $134 billion.
Separate from all this, some House Democrats are also pushing to add another $50 billion in domestic spending measures to the supplemental funding bill for Afghanistan.
According to a draft bill obtained by The Hill, House Democrats are mulling a package similar to the $58.8 billion measure moving through the Senate that’s largely for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and add another $50 billion for education, jobs and energy programs.
The additional domestic funding includes a $23 billion fund to help state and local governments stave off teacher cutbacks, $1.2 billion to prevent police layoffs and $500 million to retain state and local firefighters. The Obama administration has called on lawmakers to pass those items along with the war spending, arguing they could save up to 300,000 jobs.
The House draft also includes $5.67 billion for Pell Grants to help college students, $9 billion in loans for renewable energy projects and $9 billion in loans for nuclear energy projects.
The bill would provide $37.5 billion for military and State Department operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which is comparable to the amount in the version now being debated on the Senate floor. The draft also has $13.4 billion in compensation for Vietnam veterans exposed to the chemical Agent Orange, just like the Senate bill.
The Senate is expected to pass the Afghanistan supplemental today, with none of the above funding. Still, the Senate is expected to attach $5.1 billion in domestic disaster relief spending, and $500 million in culture war / national security state funding for Mexican border states. Neither of those measures are in the proposed House bill.
If the economic relief bill (variously called a tax extenders bill and an unemployment extension bill) passes into law in the form that was sent to the CBO, and if the war supplemental bill passes with all of the additional spending proposed by Democrats in both the House and the Senate, then the total amount of short-term stimulus would be roughly $253.5 billion. That would be welcome economic and political news, as almost all of that stimulus would be spent in 2010 and 2011.
Unfortunately, passage of all that spending is extremely unlikely. Already, the $23 billion in funding to local school districts is on the chopping block. Most of the remaining $27 billion in domestic spending that House Democrats are looking to attach to the war supplemental will also likely be cut, given the form of the bill that will (likely) pass the Senate today. During the expected mid-June conference committee, House Dems will have to scrape to get every dollar they can.
As far as the economic relief bill goes, the final form it takes is anyone’s guess. Democratic leaders in the House are still scrambling to find the votes to pass a bill today (and preparing to use some unusual procedural techniques/a>). Once the bill does finally pass the House, it will take four days for the bill to pass the Senate, given likely objections from Republicans:
The Senate cannot take up the proposal until the House approves it, which could happen Wednesday.
Once the nearly $200 billion proposal comes to the Senate, it could take four days to pass if Republicans decide to slow it as much as possible.
Those four days will take the Senate into the weekend, past the point where the House has gone into recess. Fortunately, Harry Reid has vowed again today that the Senate will stay in session until the bill is passed. Unfortunately, during those four days in the Senate, if the bill changes from the House version at all, the two bills will have to be reconciled when Congress returns from recess on June 7th. Considering how difficult it has been to pass the economic relief bill through the House, where only a simple majority is required, the bill is likely to be changed in the Senate.
Given that hundreds of thousands of people will lose their unemployment benefits on June 2nd if this bill is not passed, such a delay could cause big problems for lots of Americans. The pressure is on for Democrats now, and the clock is ticking.
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