Worthless economic stimulus plan passes

oh, lovely... i'm going to sit down right now and write up a list of everything i'm going to buy with my $600 or whatever they're going to throw at me to help me continue to pretend that we're not being taken to the cleaners by crooks...

The Senate overwhelmingly approved a $171 billion economic stimulus program on Thursday afternoon, sending it to the House for final passage on Thursday evening so that it can be sent quickly to President Bush’s desk.

The 81-to-16 vote came after Senate Democrats agreed to add only payments for senior citizens and disabled veterans to a package already approved overwhelmingly by the House with the backing of President Bush. The Democratic senators had wanted to add more than $40 billion to the House version, a proposal that would have brought the cost of the package to about $204 billion over two years.

But Republican senators held firm, frustrating the Democrats’ efforts to get the 60 votes they needed to end debate. But in settling for a $171 billion package, the Senate Democratic majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, refused to admit defeat.

“We were able to make the House bill better,” he said, pledging to continue to try to corral enough votes to provide more economic stimulus in the months ahead.

“Discretion is the better part of valor,” said Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

“The best thing for us to do is declare a big victory that we’ve achieved, namely getting the rebate checks to 20 million seniors and 250,000 disabled veterans,” Mr. Baucus said.

As passed by the Senate and sent to the House, the program calls for rebates ranging from $300 to $1,200 for most taxpayers, payments of $300 to people who paid no income taxes but earned $3,000 or more from Social Security or veterans’ disability benefits, and various tax incentives for businesses.

i posted on this disgusting scam the other day... like i keep saying, ferchrissake, let's let the whole goddam thing collapse under its own corrupt weight...

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