The Job Squad

What really surprised me was that when I went onto CNN to search for articles about the economy, there were a lot less than I had expected. As I was sifting through all of the horror stories about teen drinking and fluffy human interest pieces, I began to wonder if the news was aware that we are involved in two wars and at the same time trying to breathe life into a slowly dieing economy. 

All of that aside, I did find find a recent article about the progress being made with the economic stimulus package. Democratic leaders are saying that they worked out a key dispute between the house and the senate about school construction spending, an issue which threatened to derail the bill earlier in its conception. I think what is so key about this article is realizing that its basically impossible to pass a bill of this magnitude because everyone is extremely opinionated about every single detail. Essentially it was a battle between whether the money was better spent making new schools or trying to modernize and fix ones that already exist. Out of 219 Republicans in Congress, only three originally backed the bill, so it was quite a struggle to finally pass it.

Another article I found gave me some information about the timetable for passing the economic stimulus bill. Apparently the house plans to vote on the bill on friday, which would meet with president Obamas expectations that the bill be on his desk by presidents day on monday. This article actually had references to my previously mentioned article which came out a day before it, but it assured readers that the bill was not in jeopardy. This article said that the compromise actually provided an extra $10 billion to the $44 billion already allocated toward school construction and rehabilitation. These extra funds will be allocated through Title 1 which distributes the money based on need. The article also made it clear that every aspect of the bill was catered to the creation of new jobs, and Senator Ben Nelson is quoted as saying "Today you might call us the 'job squad'." Nelson was a key negotiator in the creation of the bill and mediated much of the discussion about school construction.

On another note, I read an article talking about the effects of our recession and not so much the process by which we are attempting to fix it. Banks led a stock selloff as investors questioned the reliability and efficiancy of the governments bailouts and stimulus package. Stocks slumped as people mulled over reports on housing sales, and their hesitation to invest was not unfounded with unemployment remaining at a 26-year high. Stocks actually rose on wednesday after there were reports about the stimulus package being close to done, but the unreliability and stagnation of the US political system prevailed and kept investors holding onto their money thursday.