This is incoming from Politico tonight: "
Big changes to Obama stimulus plan."
Overall, I'd say it's a very positive report. Highlights of the proposed modifications to the original plan's first draft include:
--reducing the proposed $3,000 tax credit for new hires;
--doubling of the funds allocated, from $10 billion to $20 billion, for the Energy Tax Credits;
--drafting of a letter from team Obama detailing, fairly precisely, what they intend to do with the second-half of the $700 billion in TARP funds;
--broadening aid to many beyond the financial sector to help prevent home foreclosures, more accountability, and tighter regulations on executive compensation for private firms the receive bailouts.
Noted in the linked Politico story, below, are positive comments from Senators Boxer, Conrad, Dodd and Kerry, among others, in terms of their sentiments voiced immediately after this evening's two-hour meeting between 35 Democratic Senators and Larry Summers and others within the Obama team.
Big changes to Obama stimulus plan
By MANU RAJU 1/11/09 8:01 PM EST
President-elect Barack Obama tried Sunday to shore up support in Congress for his ambitious economic policies, with his top advisers offering concessions on his economic-stimulus proposal and preparing to detail conditions for how the incoming administration will spend the second half of the $700 billion financial rescue package.
Emerging from a two-hour meeting in the Capitol with Obama advisers Lawrence Summers and Jason Furman, Senate Democrats praised the President-elect's team for agreeing to make changes to its stimulus proposal based off of concerns senators raised last week at a meeting with the president-elect's senior aides.
The Obama team told about 35 Senate Democrats gathered at Sunday's meeting that it would grow the size of an energy-tax incentive package and modify proposed tax credits for individuals and for businesses that hire new employees, according to meeting attendees. Also, with lawmakers raising concerns that the first half of the $700 billion of the financial rescue law was badly mismanaged, Obama's team signaled it would lay out precisely how it would spend the second half of that package, which Congress is expected to consider as soon as this week.
According to the original TARP legislation in the Fall, once the White House tells Congress they want access to the TARP funds--and it is assumed that the Bush administration will request this money before Obama takes office on the 20th--Congress is then required to either turn down the request within 15 days of that request or the U.S. Treasury Department may start using the money.
If both the House and Senate approved a resolution denying the funds to the White House (by which point it is anticipated that Obama would have assumed office), the President would be forced to veto those resolutions to obtain the funds.
The Politico story, linked above, contends that the incoming administration is concerned that they're not backed into a corner where they'd be forced to issue a veto within the first few days of Obama taking office.