President Obama urged reluctant lawmakers Saturday to quickly approve nearly $50 billion in emergency aid to state and local governments, saying the money is needed to avoid "massive layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters" and to support the still-fragile economic recovery.Read the letter here. Republicans are against it:
In a letter to congressional leaders, Obama defended last year's huge economic stimulus package, saying it helped break the economy's free fall, but argued that more spending is urgent and unavoidable. "We must take these emergency measures," he wrote in an appeal aimed primarily at members of his own party. WaPo
Don Stewart, a spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), called the letter full of "contradictions."Frankly, I'd like to see the republicans get their way. It appears the majority of Americans, or at least the loudest, don't see any value in short-term spending. Let folks suffer the consequences.
"He's calling on Congress to pass a [jobless] bill that will add about $80 billion to the deficit, but then calls for fiscal discipline; he says these measures need to be targeted and temporary, but then calls for extending programs passed in the stimulus more than a year ago," Stewart said in an e-mail.
The bill also has other spending measures including unemployment benefits:
The politics of the Democratic bill before the Senate are further complicated because it has become a grab bag of must-pass provisions. In addition to state aid and more money for jobless benefits, it includes a plan to extend $32 billion in expired tax breaks for individuals and businesses and a separate provision, known as the "doc fix," that would postpone until 2012 a scheduled pay cut for doctors who see Medicare patients.
