Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Senate Version of Stimulus Package Looks Bigger and Faster Acting Then House Bill

So it appears that Government may actually be able to function under an Obama administration.

First reports indicate that the Senate has streamlined and improved the House version of the 2009 Stimulus package.

The Senate version of the bill looks to spend about $64B more than the house version. The Senate version has more money for tax cuts and infrastructure spending than the House bill. The senate plans to spend 78% of the funds by 2010 compared to the House bill which was only planning to utilize 64% of the funds in the same timeframe.

Like the $6M Man the Senate version appears to be bigger, stronger, faster. We have the technology!

One of the biggest areas of attention about to be debated is the housing crisis. Obama wanted to deal with the housing crisis with a second follow up package after he got this one passed. It appears the Republicans feel that it should be addressed with this stimulus package since housing is at the heart of our economic problems. We feel finally some people on the hill get it! Surely Democrats will be opent to adding provisions to help out the troubled housing market with the stimulus package. This fact makes the likelihood of a Stimulus bill being passed by the Senate sometime next week highly likely. Perhaps Obama will have a nice Valentines day suprise he can sign into law he can give to his supporters as a V-day gift!

Look for some kind of interest rate or possibly waving of the tax credit repayment to be included this week in the stumulus package from the Senate. Even better would be if they allowed the $7K new home buyer tax credit to be immediately applied to downpayment assistance or closing cost assistance. Lets keep our fingers crossed that the talking heads are as eager as the rest of American to grease the wheels of the housing market and turn this thing around finally.