Category: Andrew Fitgerald
House And Senate Leaders Agree on $789 Stimulus
CONFERENCE
Bangor Daily News
Drew FitzGerald
Boston University Washington News Service
Feb. 11, 2009
WASHINGTON – House and Senate leaders tentatively agreed Wednesday to a $789 billion economic stimulus bill weighted heavily toward infrastructure and education spending, with significantly less devoted to the tax cuts championed last week by some Senate Republicans.
The pared-down package includes $54 billion for school construction and improvements and more than $150 billion for all infrastructure and transportation spending. The biggest change in the makeup of the stimulus package affected tax cuts, which shrank from 42 percent of the Senate’s bill to roughly 35 percent in the agreement announced Wednesday afternoon.
Under the tentative agreement, many tax breaks, including a credit for homebuyers and aid to those buying cars, were reduced. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said the White House itself agreed to reduce its signature working tax credit from $1,000 to $800 per person.
“We have now substantially tilted this toward an infrastructure bill,” Collins said. “That is the most powerful component in this bill to create jobs.”
Collins was one of three Republican senators to vote Tuesday for the $838 billion Senate stimulus package, which passed 61-37. The other two were Olympia Snowe of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania. The $820 billion House version passed last month with no Republican votes.
Snowe, who spent the day moving in and out of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s office, said between negotiations that she thought the “emphasis on the spending side was appropriate.”
“We wanted to make this a stimulus bill, not an omnibus bill,” Snowe said in an interview before the details of the compromise were announced. “Some spending is essential, but beyond that, we [didn’t] want to be getting ahead of the normal appropriations process.”
The revised spending figures announced Wednesday included $50 billion to help stabilize state governments facing crippling deficits, $11.5 billion to fund special education and $10 billion for Title I programs to help low-income K-12 students.
“The American people need to know that the process working here in Washington will ultimately reverse the economic slide in this country,” Snowe said.
Gov. John Baldacci praised the bill’s passage in a statement Wednesday, saying Collins and Snowe “demonstrated strong leadership and political courage.”
“They are facing intense criticism from their national party leaders and from some Democrats, who have fallen into the trap of counting on federal assistance before a final bill has passed the Congress,” Baldacci said. “The work they are doing is difficult and too often thankless. I fully support their efforts and will do whatever I can to ensure that they are successful in passing a stimulus plan that puts America back to work.”
The agreement offers roughly $90 billion to help states struggling to pay for their share of Medicaid programs and preserves a higher threshold for the Alternative Minimum Tax, a measure passed more than 30 years ago to tax the income of the wealthy.
The AMT rollback will help families as well as small businesses that pay income taxes, Snowe said.
Collins also met with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg Wednesday to discuss education funding in the final stimulus package. At the meeting, American Federation of Teachers Vice President Richard Iannuzzi demanded that the conference committee keep the roughly $19 billion the House had allocated to school construction and repair.
In the end, Collins said she agreed to allow states to spend up to $10 billion on “school repairs and modernization” as part of the broad fund the federal government will provide the states.
“I was very concerned about the precedent of establishing a new federal program for school construction, because historically, that has been the responsibility of state and local governments,” Collins said. “Once established as a separate program, it would be very hard to argue that it’s just temporary relief.”
Rep. Mike Michaud, D-Maine, said he would vote for the final bill even though it did not contain as much infrastructure spending as he would have liked.
Michaud also said he was disappointed by reports that congressional leaders agreed to remove language enforcing oversight of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, including an amendment Snowe sponsored to retroactively increase taxes on executive bonuses awarded by companies that received bailout funds last year.
“That’s the game that they play down here in Congress,” Michaud said. “They say they’ll deal with it later and pass something, knowing full well that the Senate is not going to deal with it in the first place.”
Snowe spokesman John Gentzel said Snowe’s office was working Wednesday evening to find out whether the amendment had been stripped from the bill completely or modified.
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Collins Leads Move to Trim Stimulus Package
Photos by Caroline Bridges
COLLINS
Bangor Daily News
Drew FitzGerald
Boston University Washington News Service
Feb. 5, 2009
WASHINGTON – A bipartisan group of senators led by Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Ben Nelson, D-Neb., met three times Thursday to “scrub” a now $900 billion economic stimulus bill of measures that they said would not directly create jobs.
The meetings came a day after Collins and Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, each met with President Barack Obama to discuss their concerns about the size and makeup of the bill.
In the Capitol Hill meetings Thursday, closed at times even to top aides, Collins and 14 other senators pored over the legislation line by line, removing any provisions that they thought would not save or create jobs or jumpstart spending.
“I know it’s unusual to think of senators doing that kind of painstaking, thorough work, but that’s exactly what we’re doing,” Collins said.
“It’s always refreshing to be able to do that because there are no filters and you talk straight, directly to one another,” added Nelson, a fiscally conservative Democrat who also met with the president Wednesday.
Details on the proposed reductions were not available Thursday night, and the talks could continue into Friday, but the group has come up with at least $50 billion in cuts, according to a press spokesman for Nelson.
Caught in the hall during a break in the negotiations, Collins said that the bi-partisan group has done “an in-depth scrub of the bill” to cut spending. Collins also said she originally wanted roughly a $650 billion package, but changed her mind after her meeting with Obama Wednesday.
“The president did convince me that a larger package would be good, but I can’t support a package the size of what the House passed,” she said.
“We don’t want a package that is too small, because that will end up just wasting the money,” Collins said. “On the other hand, we’re very leery of having an enormous package that would not be necessary and would just boost the federal deficit.”
As the meetings ran late into the afternoon, Collins said senators from both parties were disagreeing on several spending items. Part of the difficulty arose from different senators’ definitions of what is a stimulus, she said, because even economists differ on the ideal size of the package.
Snowe, who spent most of the week working to amend the tax portion of the bill, also said the spending half of the package needed revision. She said the dollar cost of the bill was not as important as its composition, though she said $900 billion was too much.
“I’m more concerned… that every measure is specifically geared toward job creation and stimulating the economy,” Snowe said in an interview. “When you’re going to spend to the tune of $800 billion, you’d better get it right.”
Snowe said it is important that more of the spending outlined by the Senate Appropriations Committee last week stimulate the economy relatively soon.
Both senators said they consider any measure not directly intended to create jobs inappropriate for the stimulus bill.
Snowe said she also planned to submit a temporary 35 percent tax break for small businesses to prevent them from laying off more workers. The problem is made even harder because banks are unwilling to lend to businesses trying to stay afloat, she said.
“We’re seeing so many businesses on Main Street shuttering,” she said. “It’s an emergency, in that sense.”
Snowe also sponsored an amendment Wednesday to strengthen oversight of the Treasury Department when it decides to dole out the second phase of its $700 billion federal bailout program. Companies supported by the bailout would have to repay any cash bonuses they gave executives while receiving the federal funding. The Senate passed the measure by unanimous consent.
“The flawed framework of the first financial rescue package enacted by Congress left open the escape hatch of golden parachutes for top executives on Wall Street – the same individuals whose careless mistakes hurt the financial system and forced taxpayers to foot the bill in the first place,” Snowe said in a statement Wednesday.
The stimulus package passed the House last week without a single Republican vote and President Obama has said he would like to have a bi-partisan measure on his desk by the end of next week.
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Congress Debates ‘Buy American’ Amendment to Stimulus Package
BUY AMERICA
Bangor Daily News
Drew FitzGerald
Boston University Washington News Service
Feb. 4, 2009
WASHINGTON - As the Senate considers a $900 billion economic stimulus package,
a “Buy American” amendment is sparking debate over whether the measure could destroy more jobs than it saves.
The House version of the stimulus legislation that passed last week without a single Republican vote carried an amendment requiring that all construction and repair projects receiving federal funds under the act use American steel. That provision was expanded in committee to include all “iron, steel, and manufactured goods.”
Some business groups and diplomats are attacking the idea, warning that any trade barriers Congress enacts could lead to an increase in worldwide trade tariffs against U.S. exports that would further hurt the economy. The European Union’s top diplomat in the United States warned it could not file a complaint with the World Trade Organization if the provision becomes law, according to the Associated Press.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce slammed the idea last week in a news release, noting that the last time the United States faced a major recession and enacted protectionist legislation the world economy slipped into the Great Depression.
“Without sales abroad…, many U.S. workers would be out of a job,” the chamber wrote in a Jan. 22 letter to congressional leaders.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said President Obama is confident that whatever bill comes out of Congress “will strike a balance that ensures that we meet our commitments in global trade agreements.”
Rep. Mike Michaud said he feels strongly that the Buy American clause needs to be a part of final legislation. He acknowledged the provision would create tensions with important trading partners such as Canada, “but it’s one of the things we can work out.”
“If we’re trying to stimulate the economy here, we’re better off spending money for businesses here in the United States than sending money off overseas to China,” he said. “We’ve got to start focusing on the manufacturing base here in the United States.”
Michaud criticized Obama for promising to support American businesses during his campaign before “backpedaling” by choosing Clinton-era officials such as Lawrence Summers and Rahm Emanuel as his closest advisers. Michaud called Tuesday’s designation of Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) to head the Commerce Department a “terrible pick” because Gregg once supported abolishing the department.
“If you look at who [Obama] has surrounded himself with, I’m not surprised,” Michaud said. “He’s getting advice from probably the same individuals who were involved with not dealing correctly with the financial institutions.”
Rep. Chellie Pingree said the American steel provision was also “important” to her when she voted for the stimulus package in the House, and said she supports the Senate’s expansion of the clause to include all American goods.
Both Maine senators met with Obama Wednesday at the White House to discuss potential changes to the stimulus package.
Sen. Olympia Snowe, said in an e-mail message she was confident the ultimate language of the bill would not represent a trade violation. “Frankly, I am particularly disappointed in the Canadian government’s vocal opposition to this provision, which it has the temerity to voice the very moment it is violating the Softwood Lumber Agreement by declaring new timber subsidies,” she said.
Sen. Susan Collins, in her meeting with Obama, discussed a bipartisan effort she has been working on to trim some of the spending from the stimulus package and focus more on job creation. Several expenditures she specifically mentioned included funds for State Department information technology and for combating a potential outbreak of pandemic flu. She said these things should be paid for through routine legislation and not in the stimulus package.
Senate leaders have said they hope to have a final stimulus bill ready to send to the White House by the end of next week.
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Obama Reaches Out to Maine Senators on Stimulus Bill
STIMULUS
Bangor Daily News
Drew FitzGerald
Boston University Washington News Service
Jan. 29, 2009
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama needed no help from House Republicans to pass an $819 billion economic stimulus bill this week, but when it comes to the Senate, he is hoping to win the support of moderate Republicans like Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins.
Not a single Republican in the House voted for the massive stimulus bill, but Democrats managed to pass the measure 244-177 with only 11 Democrats voting against it. Reps. Chellie Pingree and Mike Michaud (D-Maine) both voted for the stimulus plan.
The House’s stimulus plan aims to save or create an estimated 4 million jobs nationwide while assisting unemployed workers with benefits and additional food stamp funding. In Maine, the package passed by the House would spend $52 million this year on school building improvements and provide $260 million to balance the state budget, according to an analysis by Moody’s Economy.com
Pingree emphasized the fact that the bill passed by the House would go toward “shovel-ready” projects that could provide jobs within the next two years.
Michaud said he voted for the plan despite strong reservations about its cost. One measure he opposed was funding the package outside of the normal congressional budgeting process.
Obama met with House and Senate Republicans trying to convince them to support the bill and the White House has indicated it would be willing to add a tax reduction provision to the Senate measure that could increase the overall cost to $900 billion.
Snowe called the meeting with the president “exceptionally good,” adding that she found Obama to be “very straightforward, clear and concise, emphasizing his willingness to work.” Snowe said she also spoke with Obama and Vice President Biden several times this week.
Both senators said they have not yet decided if they are going to vote in favor of the stimulus package when it comes to the Senate floor. Snowe voted for the Senate Finance Committee’s $522 billion portion of the bill, which included $342 billion in proposed tax cuts. Snowe was the only Republican on the committee who voted to move the proposal forward.
As a member of the Finance Committee, Snowe pushed to get in the bill an $87 billion boost in federal Medicaid assistance to help states struggling with the cost of health care and $28 billion to digitize medical records.
Both Maine senators said they were concerned the bill could still become weighed down with unrelated legislation. The House already dropped proposals Monday to renovate the National Mall and fund a family planning initiative for Medicaid.
Collins, who also voted in favor of the measure in the Senate Appropriations Committee, said some Senate proposals, including an $870 million provision to combat a potential outbreak of pandemic flu, would make good laws but have nothing to do with resuscitating the economy. She praised Obama in an interview for listening to Senate Republicans’ concerns about some of the bill’s spending provisions.
“It was impressive that the president spent so much time – more than an hour – discussing about the contents of the package,” Collins said. “I was pleased with his outreach to us, but it now remains to be seen whether he’s willing to actually make changes.”
Snowe said it is important that the bill that comes out of the Senate does not undermine the credibility of Congress.
“We don’t want initiatives in the package that don’t meet the goals of the stimulus package,” Snowe said. “After our sorry experience with the first installment of the rescue plan, we really need to ensure that we develop a process that adheres to strong principles and maintains the integrity of the programs for which it has been designed. We can’t put everything but the kitchen sink in it.”
Michaud said in a statement he will reserve final judgment on the bill until the Senate passes its version and congressional leaders hammer out a compromise between the two versions.
“I am hopeful that the Senate will not add too greatly to the cost of the overall package,” Michaud said. “Whether that is more tax cuts or spending, it will be paid for by borrowing more and more from future generations.”
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Bill to Extend Digital Television Switch Fails in House
DTV
Bangor Daily News
Drew FitzGerald
Boston University Washington News Service
Jan. 28, 2009
WASHINGTON – Time may be nearly up for Mainers still without digital-ready television sets after a bill that would give viewers more time to make the switch from traditional analog signals failed Wednesday in the House.
Without new legislation, Americans would have until Feb. 17 to buy new television sets or equip their old sets with converter boxes under a federal law designed to update the nation’s airwaves. After that date, sets unable to receive digital signals would display nothing.
The bill, which would have delayed the switch until June 12, was considered under suspension of the rules, a procedure that limits debate and requires a two-thirds vote to pass. The vote was 258-168 in favor, with most Democrats voting for it and most Republicans voting against it.
The House, however, will have a second chance next week, when it can take up the bill under regular procedures and require only a majority vote to approve it.
The Senate unanimously approved the change Monday after weeks of reports that too few Americans had received federally financed coupons to buy the digital converter boxes.
According to Rep. Mike Michaud, D-Maine, more than 5,600 Mainers remain on a waiting list for digital converter box coupons, which are being given out by the federal government. The coupon allows each household to get up to two $40 vouchers to pay for boxes, but because the program has hit a funding limit there is a waiting list for the coupons.
“It’s important that these Mainers are able to continue to get news and information about local and national events,” Michaud, who voted for the delay, said in a statement late Wednesday.
Some local stations, including all carriers of Maine’s Public Broadcasting Network, have already received permission from the Federal Communications Commission to make the switch early. Other state broadcasting stations will begin transmitting digital signals within the next three weeks, absent new legislation. The change will not affect Maine television viewers who rely on cable or satellite signals.
Rep Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, who also voted for the delay, said, “If you don’t have the box, or if you haven’t upgraded to a new TV, you have no ability to sit down and turn on the TV.” Pingree said few constituents have contacted her office asking for a delay, though she added that more Mainers could be affected than the number of complaints suggest.
“I think a lot of the people who are going to be most vulnerable in this situation aren’t aware of what’s going on,” the freshman representative said in an interview. “I would expect that if there’s no delay, our phones will ring off the hook.”
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Mainers Squeeze Into Washington to Witness History in the Making
MAINERS
Bangor Daily News
Drew Fitzgerald
Boston University Washington News Service
Jan. 20, 2009
WASHINGTON – Maine residents walked, squeezed and jostled their way among record crowds Tuesday to catch a glimpse of Barack Obama’s becoming the 44th president of the United States.
Though they came from diverse backgrounds and had widely varying views of the ceremony, from the shadow of the Capitol to the scrum of the National Mall to the comfort of a quiet room with a television at a nearby museum, all shared the same enthusiasm for witnessing history in the making.
Androscoggin County Commissioner Elaine Makas said she left from Virginia around 6:30 a.m. to get the best position possible for the ceremony, even though she was one of those lucky enough to secure a ticket. Even then, the officials in front of the Capitol were only “little dots” from her ticketed section.
“It didn’t really matter,” she said. “I wasn’t there to see them clearly. If I wanted to do that, I could have stayed home in my hotel and seen it on TV. For me, the feeling was being with so many people. That was the nicest part at all.”
Makas said she arrived early, but a friend who planned to join her was not so lucky. When it became clear he was not going to make it through the crowds to meet her, she gave her extra seat to an older black man who had come with his wife.
When Obama took the oath of office, the man and his wife said, “We finally did it,” Makas remembered.
“I looked at them and said, ‘We all finally did it,’” she said. The couple later hugged her after Obama delivered his speech.
Makas’ friend Maxine Porter called the event the culmination of a long struggle going back to the protests of the Civil Rights Movement.
“I’m a child of the ’60s,” she said. “We were the ones who got into trouble to get the ball rolling.”
Near the southern side of the Capitol, Castine resident Molly Mankiewicz, 21, said she came to see Obama after supporting him throughout last year’s election season and attending the Democratic National Convention.
Mankiewicz said the Obama campaign’s inclusiveness impressed her from the start.
“Obama lets you get involved,” she said. “It was easy to get involved.”
The election of the nation’s first black president was a historic moment, Mankiewicz said, though she added that Obama built his campaign by running as a “vehicle for change” who could appeal to all Americans rather than touting his race.
“He was saying, ‘You don’t like what’s going on. Do something about it,” the freelance film director said. “I’m young, and it was the first time I was ever interested in politics before now.”
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Sandord Band’s Day in the Sun is its Most Demanding Performance Ever
SANFORD
Bangor Daily News
Drew FitzGerald
Boston University Washington News Service
Jan. 20, 2009
WASHINGTON -- Sanford High School band director Matt Doiron took a picture of the thermometer outside the Wilbur Shaw hardware store in Sanford to show out-of-staters how good they had it: minus 2 degrees when his band left for the national capital on Saturday.
Tuesday afternoon turned out to be the band’s day in the sun, as students just old enough to earn their drivers’ licenses marched behind the nation’s top college and military bands for Barack Obama’s inaugural parade.
“I’m not sure anything prepares you for that first left turn onto Pennsylvania Avenue,” Doiron said. “Between goose bumps and a few of them choking back tears… they will think of their lives differently forever.”
Even without Washington’s very cold weather, Doiron said Tuesday’s parade was the band’s most demanding performance ever, and not just for the mile and a half march down Pennsylvania Avenue. After a 10-hour bus ride to a Washington suburb in Maryland on Saturday, the band assembled at 5 a.m. Tuesday near the Pentagon to be screened, along with their instruments, through a security checkpoint.
Though the band has performed at parades and football games in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont and Nova Scotia, Doiron said his students were used to having much more time to prepare.
“The last time we did a major parade, we had about five and a half months,” he said.
“Even that’s pretty hurried.”
Tuesday marked the end of a brief but hectic month for the celebrated band. Doiron said students struggled to prepare for the inauguration after learning they were selected over other Maine applicants on Dec 5.
Most of Doiron’s students had left class at about 2:30 that Friday afternoon when an aide at Sen. Susan Collins’ office told Doiron there was a call for him.
“There was a little pause, and they said ‘Mr. Doiron, Sen. Collins is on the phone for you,” the Sanford native remembered. “She asked if we had heard anything yet, and I said, ‘No.’ She said, ‘Great. I was hoping to be the first to tell you.’ ”
The band was scheduled to play for the annual Holly Days Parade that very evening, and within two hours of the senator’s call, someone had already made a banner boasting of the band’s accomplishment: “D.C. or bust”
Sanford junior Polly McAdam, 16, said it took a while for the moment to sink in. People were celebrating all weekend in Washington, where the sidewalks are often wider than many Sanford streets.
“It was kind of like a big party,” she said. “Everyone was selling T-shirts and in a good mood.”
McAdam said she started playing French horn in fourth grade, but her older brother, a trumpet player, has already graduated from Sanford.
“My brother’s jealous of course, but my parents are really excited,” she said. “They wanted me to call them all the time.”
Drum major Matthew Prive, 18, said the band, by marching in the inaugural parade, was representing more than Sanford High.
“We’re representing the state, our school and all of New England,” he said.
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Maine Native Showered With Praise for Directing Inaugural Events
ME DELEGATION
Bangor Daily News
Drew FitzGerald
Boston University Washington News Service
Jan. 19, 2009
WASHINGTON – The nation’s capital barely got a dusting of snow Monday, but inside Maine’s unofficial inaugural celebration here, Presidential Inauguration Committee Executive Director Emmett Beliveau was showered with praise.
The Maine native in charge of coordinating the long list of inaugural events taking place here rattled off a list of record-breaking statistics: The Washington Metro set a new Sunday record for rail ridership after the Inauguration’s opening ceremony by carrying more than 660,000 riders. Organizers expect that number to double on Tuesday. More than 80,000 people applied just to volunteer during Tuesday’s parade.
The whistle-stop tour starting in Philadelphia on Saturday also drew record crowds.
“Not only were the trains running on time, but they were ahead of schedule,” Beliveau said.
Beliveau was a celebrity among the political campaigners, lawyers and private businessmen who gathered Monday at the New Zealand embassy to celebrate Barack Obama’s inauguration. But support for the president-elect himself also ran high at an event Beliveau’s father Severin Beliveau, whose law firm helped host the event, jokingly billed as “90-10” bipartisan.
“His talk of being bipartisan and independent fits in well with the Maine political ethic,” Rep. Chellie Pingree told The Bangor Daily News. “He had an early strong support team in Maine, and it just grew.”
Pingree said the U.S. House of Representatives has already passed several pieces of legislation since members were sworn in Jan. 6, but she said lawmakers are “anxious” to see Obama assume office so they can get his feedback on their other proposals. The national economic stimulus package Obama proposed will be the first major order of business, she said.
“It will be a very strong package, because Congress has a strong hand in it,” Pingree said.
In a speech to the crowd, Maine Gov. John Baldacci hearkened back to his own experiences growing up in 1960, when his parents traveled as delegates to the Democratic National Convention where John F. Kennedy was nominated.
“It was an exciting time for him and our family, where a lot of new blood, enthusiasm and young people from all over the world coming together and trying to be this generation’s leaders,” he said. “Barack Obama, he’s tapped into the same network.”
Baldacci attended two inaugurations before this one, but he said they “aren’t going to compare” to the number of spectators from the United States and abroad who will be gathering in Washington and tuning in around the world to see Obama take the oath of office.
“We’re starting at a low point in terms of our relations around the world and in terms of our economy,” he said. “But I think we’re starting it all together.”
Baldacci frequently pointed to the poor economic conditions facing Mainers and all Americans as a heavy burden weighing on an otherwise high-spirited celebration, and pledged to push for federal help and state legislation “to create the kind of one-two punch that can jolt our economy.”
“Celebrations today, and tomorrow work begins anew,” he said.
New Zealand’s ambassador to the United States, Roy Ferguson, explained that the event took place at the embassy partly thanks to his longstanding friendship with Severin Beliveau and his partner at the firm, Simon Leeming.
“What I think is remarkable to outsiders is that you can have such a long election campaign in the United States and it can be very hotly contested, and then on the fourth of November, when the result is known, Americans come together,” Ferguson said. “What we’re celebrating today is really that coming together and that American spirit of optimism.”
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