White House, Congress, near agreement on $800 billion stimulus package.

[Davis_X_Machina]

The Economist's Greg Ip reports:

The package comes in two parts. The first is an extension of all of George Bush’s tax cuts for the next two years. Mr Obama acquiesced to an extension for the upper 2%, bowing to the reality that he did not have 60 votes in the Senate to extend only the cuts for the lower 98%. Tax credits for child care, education and for low-income wage earners are also extended for an additional year. The second part is an injection of short-term fiscal steroids: a two-percentage point cut in the Social Security payroll tax for workers for one year, worth $120 billion (that’s double what Mr Obama’s “making work pay” credit was worth), one year of complete expensing of business equipment, worth $200 billion, and a 13-month extension of emergency unemployment insurance benefits.... While the stimulative boost next year is probably worth some $800 billion, or roughly 5% of GDP, the 10-year cost is lower largely because tax deferred by accelerated business investment expensing will eventually be paid....

[Bluebear]

1. 'acquiesced' - well, I grant it sounds tidier than "caved"

:)

[Wounded Bear]

2. Sounds like they "acquiesced" to .......

$800 Billion dollars in Republican sound bites.

[dflprincess]

3. "Tax credits for child care, education and for low-income wage earners are

also extended for an additional year" and only a 13 month extension for unemployment benefits while the wealthy get their tax cuts for two years.

And then there's the cut in the payroll tax - just a cover for damaging Social Security and claiming it's insolvent.

Just says it all doesn't it?

[provis99]

4. Jesus H Christ what goddamn liars The Economist are.

they're counting $800 billion in tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy as an economic "stimulus package"?!?!?! Screw them and their lying right-wing propaganda.

[Wounded Bear]

5. Well, it will certainly stimulate their economy....

:evilgrin:

God, I hate using that smiley here in the midst of gallows humor. I feel like part of a combat platoon about to go up Hamburger Hill again.

[OlympicBrian]

6. They're not really lying, the perks for the elite are real

And more jobs in China and India.

[Davis_X_Machina]

7. The UI extension...

...the extension of the tax credits for child care, for tuition, and the EITC, and the cut in the payroll tax are of course not-real.

[OlympicBrian]

8. What happened to the Republican and Tea Party austerity? nt

[Davis_X_Machina]

9. Gone, hopefully....

...but at a price.

Now with that bit of hypocrisy exposed, something might be able to be done re boosting aggregate demand.

Why is DU so full of deficit hawks? It's a mirror-image of a place like Free Republic.