Signing the Stimulus
EmailPresident Barack Obama signed the $787 billion, 1,071 page, "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act" today, capping a whirlwind month-long effort to pass an economic plan the president says is the “most sweeping economic recovery package in our history.”
“What makes this recovery plan so important is not just that it will create or save three and a half million jobs over the next two years,” Obama told an audience of 300 elected officials and members of the ‘green energy’ community in Denver, Colo. “It’s that we are putting Americans to work doing the work that America needs done in critical areas that have been neglected for too long –- work that will bring real and lasting change for generations to come.”
But Obama emphasized that this bill signing is just the beginning and that the road ahead will not be easy.
"The road to recovery will not be straight. We will make progress and there may be some slippage along the way. But I have every confidence that if we are willing to continue doing the difficult work that must be done –- by each of us and by all of us –- then we will leave this struggling economy behind us, and come out on the other side, more prosperous as a people.”
About a third of the massive bill includes tax cuts the White House says will spur business growth and save working families’ money. The rest of the bill is divided up between aid to states — who are clamoring for federal government help in the face of massive budget deficits — and direct spending on infrastructure projects dubbed “shovel ready” by the Obama team.
“What I am signing, then, is a balanced plan with a mix of tax cuts and investments. It is a plan that’s been put together without earmarks or the usual pork barrel spending. And it is a plan that will be implemented with an unprecedented level of transparency and accountability,” Obama said.
To that end, the president also announced the launch of a new website, www.recovery.gov, designed to allow citizens to follow up on the effectiveness of the bill and see specifically how each dollar is being spent in their state.
President Obama also tried to highlight other aspects of his economic recovery plan, including upgrading the country’s power grid and encouraging “green energy” businesses such as solar power companies. Obama toured a solar panel set up on the roof of the building where he signed the legislation into law.
– Jake Tapper, Jon Garcia and Sunlen Miller
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“President Obama also tried to highlight other aspects of his economic recovery plan…”
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Did someting happen to keep him from highlighting erp?
Or was it poorly done?
Posted by: mad | February 17, 2009, 6:13 pm 6:13 pm
jpt quotes Der One-der-taker:
“it will create or save three and a half million jobs over the next two years,”
Well, HEY: there’s some “change” — they’ve re-ordered “save-r-create” as “create-r-save”. Even LESS mellifluous, but still nonsensical.
Those who don’t want to hazard a click on “Obama” organization sites might check out, instead, analysis at “Notropis Notes”.
Is The CHANGEling REALLY left-handed? Or is that just an affectation to make Him seem more like Clinton and Gerald Ford (and sometimes Reagan)? He WRITES like a person who’s still LEARNING to write with His left hand.
Maybe it’s another Biblical thing … ?
Posted by: Poison Cookies | February 17, 2009, 6:14 pm 6:14 pm
Hopefully, the Republicans won’t keep bellyaching about the bill and forecasting failure on it. Those petulant old whippersnappers need to shape up!
Posted by: kathy | February 17, 2009, 6:14 pm 6:14 pm
It isn’t just about where the stimulus cash goes, but what sort of immediate positive effect it will have on the economy. How,long will the public retain patience? Three months…Six months?
Posted by: matt | February 17, 2009, 6:18 pm 6:18 pm
I don’t care about the signing, I am interested in seeing the deployment and results.
Posted by: jhw539 | February 17, 2009, 6:31 pm 6:31 pm
Did anyone ask him if he’d actually read the bill yet?
Posted by: Aaron | February 17, 2009, 6:32 pm 6:32 pm
Aaron: “Did anyone ask him if he’d actually read the bill yet?”
What do you mean? There is nothing in the substance of the bill you care to debate so you prefer to insinuate he couldn’t read through a 1000 pages – of which almost all of them were cut and pasted from a pair of week+ old bills – over 4+ days?
I just don’t get this pointless sound bite about reading the bill. Any Congress critter who doesn’t know what’s in there was not doing their job over the past month and has an inept staff.
Posted by: jhw539 | February 17, 2009, 6:38 pm 6:38 pm
Who WRITES this crap?!
“Hold us accountable for the results”, burbled Der One in Denver. (Does that remind anybody of Gary Hart inviting the press to follow him around?)
The pretense, while spending bazillions on God knows what-all state-based and corprate scams, of “taming deficits” described as “explosive” doesn’t make ANY sense.
Posted by: Naked-Emperor News | February 17, 2009, 6:38 pm 6:38 pm
“…create or save three and a half million jobs”
This is the kind of rhetorical slop Democrats thrive on. It sounds like it means something, so they’ll automatically believe it’s true without a single thought.
It was 3-4 million until today. Morning shows are quoting 4 million jobs.
I can’t wait for next week. Barack Obama really has contempt for the intellect of the American people, and for at least 62% of them he’s got it right.
Posted by: drjohn | February 17, 2009, 6:43 pm 6:43 pm
Now comes the hard part for the White House: Waiting for actual results and economic progress directly attributable to the stimulus.
Posted by: matt | February 17, 2009, 6:52 pm 6:52 pm
“Any Congress critter who doesn’t know what’s in there was not doing their job over the past month and has an inept staff.”
Not unlikely on both counts, BUT … when the “Chief Performance Officer” — a position previously appearing in corporation management — was being appointed (7 January, the day after Porkulus was first introduced in the Senate) — then DIS-appointed — no one in the press put together just WHAT the Performance Officer was FOR … which seems now to be revealed as serving as the chair of the “Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board” (RAT) Board for Porkulus … so it’s easy to see how Congresspersons and/or staff might be hoodwinked and bamboozled.
So … with Porkulus a done deal, how does the er now non-existent Performance Officer — Killefer was stuffed under the bus for tax troubles less serious than Geithner’s — oversee “accountability” and “transparency”?
Just ASKING.
Porkulus seems disturbingly reminiscent of the “emergency” billions in cash that went missing in Iraq, except that even Bush didn’t have the gall to cite his own “transparency” in a situation which was anything BUT.
Posted by: Human Intelligence | February 17, 2009, 6:58 pm 6:58 pm
We cats are wondering how many pages of the 1071-page bill our Smartest Pb0 actually read by himself before signing it.
Posted by: two cats | February 17, 2009, 7:05 pm 7:05 pm
Does anyone KNOW if Obama read the bill before signing it?
Or do people who walk on water not need to do the usual things we mortals feel obliged to do when signing important documents that force other people to spend their hard-earned money?
Posted by: dream | February 17, 2009, 7:06 pm 7:06 pm
dream, two cats: So you have no specific or substantive issues with it, you’d rather quibble over completely meaningless nonsense. (Gasp – a CEO not reading every single line of a major contract at least three times! Delegating tasks? Shame, shame, shame!)
So how long before you’re accusing Obama both of not reading and of writing the bill?
Posted by: jhw539 | February 17, 2009, 7:09 pm 7:09 pm
What is PB0 and the Whitehouse’s estimate of the number of jobs lost without his “stimulus” money giveaways?
5 million in the next two years? So, he he loses 1 million jobs in two years, he could claim that his stimulus has created 4 million jobs.
Wouldn’t it be reasonable to ask our PB0 to give us his take?
Posted by: Voodoo | February 17, 2009, 7:09 pm 7:09 pm
jhw539,
Right, PB0 does not need to read what he signs. That’s why PB0 could blame Pelosi for messing up his HOPE and CHANGE in the House by writing a bill he has no clue about, generating 0 (such a familiar number associated with PB0) support from the republicans for his bipartisanship.
Posted by: two cats | February 17, 2009, 7:15 pm 7:15 pm
jhw539,
No, I’d be pleased to know he read it through once.
As a matter of fact, I’d be pleased to know if anyone who signed it actually read — and understood — the bill and its ramifications, before signing it.
Posted by: dream | February 17, 2009, 7:23 pm 7:23 pm
“the bill and its ramifications”
A couple of particularly dubious ramifications of Porkulus appear to be that beyond-bankrupt financial institutions that have preyed on the poor and near-poor, and an incalculable number of over-compensated bureaucrats in the beyond-bankrupt State of California who do the same, will be uh preserved for “generations to come”.
That’s soooo reassuring we might as well move to … Brazil.
Posted by: Human Intelligence | February 17, 2009, 7:31 pm 7:31 pm
I heard a comment on the news that one of the things in the stimulus was a 93,000 pay increase for each senator per year. Any one else hear about this?
So we get $13 a week break, lol, and then $9,000 in tax increases to pay more for them? I am outraged.
Posted by: NoComm | February 17, 2009, 8:47 pm 8:47 pm
why in the world did he have to go to Denver to sign this bill?? the 4-year campaign, like Clinton?
Posted by: kvnmnnng | February 17, 2009, 9:47 pm 9:47 pm
Posted by: two cats | Feb 17, 2009 7:05:27 PM
The whole point was to get is passed before anyone could do a serious analysis of it.
That’s how bad it is.
And Obama had to create a crisis to make it happen.
Posted by: drjohn | February 17, 2009, 9:58 pm 9:58 pm
Whoever wrote the bill is irrelevent now. Obama owns it. He celebrated the bill as a great accomplishment, alone.
Posted by: mad | February 17, 2009, 10:14 pm 10:14 pm
Obama traveled to Colorado on Air Force One.
Joe Biden traveled to Colorado on the vice presidential plane.
Jet-pooling would have been nice.
Posted by: mad | February 17, 2009, 10:30 pm 10:30 pm
It seems rather obvious that this thread is being highly trolled. The same comments, the same anachronyms, the same rhetoric, over and over and over, but with different names.
I find it hilarious that Republicans complain about not being included in the process, but the President went to unprecidented lengths to work with them and get their opinions and blessing. Now Republicans are whining that “nobody could read this”. So if there wasn’t time to read it, how can they complain about it’s contents? As usual Republicans are a joke and are being petulent children only because they are not the party in power. Sounds like the first “entitlement” problem that needs to be taken care of is the GOPs sense of entitlement.
Posted by: Rich | February 17, 2009, 11:34 pm 11:34 pm
What’s in this so-called stimulus plan Mr. President besides pet projects? and things snuck in after the bill had seen signed? I’ve never seen such a sloppy mess in my 61 years! RUSH…RUSH….RUSH! WASTE WASTE WASTE! This is not the AMERICAN WAY!!!! I thought this was planned to build the economy and help people get jobs? I see very little of same. How many promises have you broken thus far to the AMERICAN PEOPLE?! Far too many as far as I am concerned for the short time you have been in office.
NO NATIONAL HEALTHCARE WANTED! LESS GOVERNMENT CONTROL…leave that to the individual STATES. NO ENFRINGEMENT FOR THE SECOND AMENDMENT. LESS GOVERNMENT PORKULUS SPENDING!
SO MUCH FOR HOPE – CHANGE -TRANSPARENCY AND INTEGRITY!
Pres. Obama, could you and Ms. Pelosi please quit shaking your finger at us and threatening the American citizens…we would appreciate it.
Posted by: doubly mad | February 18, 2009, 12:36 am 12:36 am
The Democrat party that drove the economy off the cliff has unilaterally decided to throw the taxpayers over as well. I hope my kids grow up and find good jobs so they can pay all this crap off. They should be cutting spending, some fiscial restraint is absolutly required. The stimulus is just a nail in our coffin.
Posted by: Philip V. | February 18, 2009, 3:29 am 3:29 am
It seems rather obvious that this thread is being highly trolled. The same comments, the same anachronyms, the same rhetoric, over and over and over, but with different names
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Rich- I disagree. The repetitious hot button words and platitudes are all they can come up with. Also, a lot of the material is also gleaned off sources like Limbaugh and the Drudge Report. What you read here shows mostly a lack of critical thinking and a variation of the mob mentality.
Posted by: kathy | February 18, 2009, 8:47 am 8:47 am
jhw539-well..well..well. The Illinois House Republicans just went on record that the Illinois Democratic leadership Speaker Madigan(whose daughter wanted to run for Gov. and who was on the short list to replace Obama) through his girl-Barbara Flynn Currie(who conducted the impeachment against Blagojevich) WERE GIVEN THE INFO ABOUT BURRIS BY HIS LAWYERS BEFORE HE TESTIFIED BUT SAT ON IT LONG ENOUGH TO GET BURRIS’ VOTE FOR THE STIMULUS BILL. Now he will be gotten rid of and the new PUPPET Gov. Pat Quinn will name who Obama, Reid and Durbin really wanted. You see, THAT’S why O, Reid and Durbin reversed their opposition so fast. All of this would only drag out the stimulus bill that was RUSHED to be put through. As soon as it was voted on, the story broke about Burris being asked to raise funds for Blagojevich. To all the non-believers-this is how the Obama machine works-because if you don’t think it was his people who arranged all this and then ratted out Burris…then you really don’t know your history. Madigan rules in Illinois and he was told what to do. As far as Burris, he TOLD them and they chose to keep it quiet until they got what they wanted.
Posted by: RL in Illinois | February 18, 2009, 3:09 pm 3:09 pm
“I heard a comment on the news that one of the things in the stimulus was a 93,000 pay increase for each senator per year. Any one else hear about this?
So we get $13 a week break, lol, and then $9,000 in tax increases to pay more for them? I am outraged.”
No, you are gullible.
Congress just received a $4600 raise per cost of living adjustment.
This is automatic unless the Congress votes against it.
They did in 2007 and plan to do so again for 2010.
Posted by: Ryan C | February 18, 2009, 7:11 pm 7:11 pm
$93,000 pay increase for Senators? I don’t think so. Check the facts.
Posted by: George | February 19, 2009, 11:57 pm 11:57 pm
when does the stimulus package begin.
Posted by: chris powell | March 19, 2009, 10:15 am 10:15 am
nice, really nice!
Posted by: Spertotorihiz | April 16, 2009, 8:37 pm 8:37 pm