The U.S. Senate on Thursday approved an economic bailout package that would send $600 to $1,200 in rebates to most taxpayers and $300 checks to low-income people, including disabled veterans and Social Security recipients.
The 81-16 vote came after a week-long standoff that was broken after Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi teamed up with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell to craft a compromise package.
The package has serious omissions.
But when it comes to priming the pump for a faltering economy, the rule has to be “better quick than never.” Judged by that standard, the compromise midwived by Pelosi and McConnell is a breath of fresh air in a Washington political swamp that has long been overlain by the fetid vapors of partisan gridlock.
We give special credit to Pelosi for reaching across party lines because she had to openly split with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who had been fighting for a more expensive package that would have added 13 weeks of extra jobless benefits, home-heating subsidies, and extra tax refunds for coal producers to the measure passed by the House. (You read that right — Reid wanted special breaks for coal companies. You just can’t make this stuff up.)
In return for dropping the extra benefits sought by Reid, McConnell and his Republicans agreed to add rebates for 20 million Social Security recipients and 250,000 disabled veterans who would not have received any money under the House bill.
If the House goes along, as it is expected to do, the package will now give rebates — $600 for individuals, $1,200 for couples — to individuals making up to $75,000 a year and couples earning up to $150,000. People who paid no income taxes but earned at least $3,000 — including Social Security or veterans’ disability benefits — would get a $300 rebate.
If Bush signs the measure, the rebate checks would begin arriving in May. The rebates would be based on 2007 tax returns, which are not due until April 15.
We confess to shuddering at the very idea of borrowing more money in a year in which the total federal deficit, including this stimulus package, will probably exceed $400 billion. But if the notion is to hand out cash in hopes that the recipients will spend it quickly, thus stimulating the economy, we can’t think of any better targets for such largesse than our hard-pressed senior citizens and the disabled veterans who sacrificed so much on behalf of the rest of us.
There is one Democratic amendment that was defeated in the Senate that we’d urge the House to add when the bill returns to reconcile differences with the Senate version.
That is a portfolio of renewable energy credits crafted by Washington Sen. Maria Cantwell. It extends tax credits for investments in wind energy, biomass, hydropower, and geothermal electricity facilities; prolongs the 30 percent investment credit for businesses that install solar or fuel cell equipment; and continues incentives for energy conservation at a total cost of about $5.5 billion.
Colorado, led by Gov. Bill Ritter and the legislature, is already well on the way to becoming the OPEC of the new energy economy and could add thousands more new jobs with the Cantwell package.
We urge the House to graft Cantwell’s “green energy” agenda onto the stimulus package to ensure that many of the jobs it generates will be in the environmentally benign and economically sustainable renewable energy industry.
