US Senate approves stimulus plan

[Jon_Irenicus]

The US Senate has passed an economic stimulus plan expected to cost some $838bn (£573bn).

The Democratic-controlled Senate voted 61-37 to approve the measure, with few Republicans opting to back it.

Tough negotiations are now expected in order to reconcile the Senate bill with the House of Representatives’s version.

President Barack Obama welcomed the vote as a good start. It came as the US Treasury Secretary unveiled a bank bail-out plan worth some $1.5 trillion.

The president, who says the stimulus measure is needed to create up to four million jobs and lift the economy, has said he wants the final package to reach his desk by 16 February.

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The financial system is working against recovery, and that’s the dangerous dynamic we need to change



Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner




US unveils new $1.5 trillion plan

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Speaking at a public event in Fort Myers, Florida, Mr Obama said the passage of the Senate legislation was “good news” but warned there was still work to do.

“We’ve still got to get the House bill and the Senate bill to match up before it gets sent to my desk, so we have a little more work to do over the next couple of days,” he said.

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he would send a completed version of the legislation to Mr Obama “as soon as possible”.

Democrats in the Senate secured support for the bill from three Republican senators, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe from Maine and Arlen Specter from Pennsylvania.

The House and Senate measures are largely similar, but there are differences over how to expand the federal medical programme, Medicaid, and on spending priorities.

While the House bill would give more money to schools, local governments and individual states, the Senate bill devotes more resources to tax cuts.

Meanwhile, under Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s bank bail-out plan, the size of a key Federal Reserve lending program will be expanded to $1 trillion from $200bn.

In addition, a public-private investment fund of $500bn will be created to absorb banks’ toxic assets and could be expanded to $1 trillion.

Source.

This should bring tears to the Mad Hatter’s eyes! Someone even nuttier than he exists!

[Jon_Irenicus]

Fresh out of la-la-land, we have this:

An environmental group that works closely with the UK government has introduced an idea that isn’t likely to win it too many friends: ration air travel. If implemented, the plan would allow British travelers an annual quota of short haul flights, with flights exceeding that allotment likely to get taxed at progressively higher rates.

This harebrained idea is just the latest attempt by the UK to come to grips with its self imposed carbon reduction targets, some of the most aggressive in the world. Hitting them will require that emissions in 2050 come in below those of 2005 – no easy feat. That has the government proposing anything and everything that might cut down on CO2.

“We will have to constrain demand in an absolute sense, with people not allowed to make as many journeys as they could in an unconstrained manner,” said Adair Turner, chairman of the Committee on Climate Change the day he proposed the rationing idea to Parliament. He argued that there was “no reason at all why people should fly around the UK,” and suggested that domestic flights be taxed so heavily that they essentially disappear.

Huh?

The Committee on Climate change describes itself as “an independent body established under the Climate Change Act to advise the UK Government on setting carbon budgets, and to report to Parliament on the progress made in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.” The group is made up of academics, technocrats, and a sprinkling of industry executives. Lord Turner, who took the reins of the group last year, previously worked for Chase Manhattan, McKinsey & Co., and Merrill Lynch.

Critics of his idea were quick to shoot it down.

“The UK’s emissions are insignificant compared to China and India,” Kendra Okonski of the the International Policy Network pointed out to the Daily Mail. “We will impose costs on our economy which will harm the poor, but do nothing to help the climate.”

Flying Matters, a coalition of aviation-related groups, was also quick to show its displeasure. “One always suspects with these half-baked proposals that the people who put them forward really intend them to apply to ordinary people, many of whom have only recently gained access to air travel, rather than to themselves,” it said in a wordy statement. Not a surprising stance considering that the group’s members include British Airways, Boeing, Airbus, and the Airport Operators Association.

But the government doesn’t appear to be on board either. In response to the recommendations, Transportation Secretary Norman Baker said that "there is an absolute need to recognise (sic) the serious climate change implications of aviation but Forties-style rationing is not the way forward.”

The UK is going to have to work hard to hit its aggressive emissions targets, but we agree with Baker. Rationing is definitely not the way to move forward.

Source.

The kooks that run this country need to be subjected to an updated form of the guilotine.

[wombatron]

@Jon Irenicus

The US Senate has passed an economic stimulus plan expected to cost some $838bn (£573bn).

The Democratic-controlled Senate voted 61-37 to approve the measure, with few Republicans opting to back it.

Tough negotiations are now expected in order to reconcile the Senate bill with the House of Representatives’s version.

President Barack Obama welcomed the vote as a good start. It came as the US Treasury Secretary unveiled a bank bail-out plan worth some $1.5 trillion.

The president, who says the stimulus measure is needed to create up to four million jobs and lift the economy, has said he wants the final package to reach his desk by 16 February.

| |

The financial system is working against recovery, and that’s the dangerous dynamic we need to change



Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner




US unveils new $1.5 trillion plan

|
| - | - |

Speaking at a public event in Fort Myers, Florida, Mr Obama said the passage of the Senate legislation was “good news” but warned there was still work to do.

“We’ve still got to get the House bill and the Senate bill to match up before it gets sent to my desk, so we have a little more work to do over the next couple of days,” he said.

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he would send a completed version of the legislation to Mr Obama “as soon as possible”.

Democrats in the Senate secured support for the bill from three Republican senators, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe from Maine and Arlen Specter from Pennsylvania.

The House and Senate measures are largely similar, but there are differences over how to expand the federal medical programme, Medicaid, and on spending priorities.

While the House bill would give more money to schools, local governments and individual states, the Senate bill devotes more resources to tax cuts.

Meanwhile, under Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s bank bail-out plan, the size of a key Federal Reserve lending program will be expanded to $1 trillion from $200bn.

In addition, a public-private investment fund of $500bn will be created to absorb banks’ toxic assets and could be expanded to $1 trillion.

Source.

This should bring tears to the Mad Hatter’s eyes! Someone even nuttier than he exists!

Surprise?

[:S]

[Spideynw]

We can only hope it does not make it past the House, and if it does, that everyone who voted for it gets hanged.

[Sphairon]

@Jon Irenicus

Fresh out of la-la-land, we have this:

And while all you Englishmen are voluntarily forced to adapt your living habits to the wishes of the Weather Police, we here in Germany pay anyone who scraps his old car and gets a new one 2500€! That’s right, if your car is 9 years old and you bring it to the junkyard, you’ll get a 2500€ subsidy for buying that beautiful gas-guzzler you always wanted to have - as long as it meets the emission criteria of the euro-4 standard!

But lo and behold, you don’t even have to pay taxes for one year for your new vehicle if you buy it right now! You see, while it’s important to save the climate, the auto industry supposedly is the “backbone of the German economy”. Thus, we need to encourage people to buy buy buy new cars right now!

Gotta love the inner consistency of politicians.