President Obama's $ 787 billion economic stimulus package was approved by the US House of Representatives on Friday (February 13, 2009), by a vote of 246-83 with no Republican support.

 

This bill is now required to be passed by the US senate before being sent to the President to sign it into a law. February 16 has been set as a deadline for the bill by President Obama.

 

President Obama's package contains $311 billion in appropriations, including $120 billion in infrastructure, $14.2 billion for health care, $105.9 billion for education and training besides, around $286 billion in tax cuts and $54 billion for cash-strapped states. Economic stimulus package also includes more than $37.5 billion for energy infrastructure, $24.3 billion for those impacted by the economic crisis and $7.8 billion for law enforcement and other programmes.

 

The President hailed this economic stimulus package noting that it would create over 3.5 million jobs in the coming two years. In an address to business leaders at the White House on Friday Obama said , "It's a plan that will ignite spending by businesses and consumers, make the investments necessary for lasting economic growth and prosperity and save or create more than 3.5 million jobs over the next two years." He further added, "The goal at the heart of this plan is to create jobs, not just any jobs but jobs doing the work America needs done."

 

According to views expressed by non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the bill could increase employment in a range of 800,000 to 2.3 million jobs by the fourth quarter of 2009 and 1.2 million to 3.6 million by the fourth quarter of 2010. Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, who was pleased at the passage of this historical bill said, "We're proud of the product ... this is historical and transformational."

 

However, the bill was strongly slammed by the Republicans. According to them the bill was more a spending bill and a colossal waste of money. Dave Camp, House Ways and Means Committee ranking member, had said on Wednesday that the stimulus could create a short- term boon, but a long-term drag on the economy. "Just so everybody knows, in 10 years the economy will be worse off, with less jobs," he remarked. Even Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky shared the same opinion and said, "This is not the smart approach," adding further that "the taxpayers of today and tomorrow will be left to clean up the mess."