The US House of Representatives is expected
to vote along party lines later Wednesday on an unprecedented 825-
billion-dollar economic stimulus package to help pull the world's largest
economy out of its most serious recession in decades, dpa reported.
President Barack Obama, who has made the stimulus a centrepiece of his efforts
to revive the struggling economy, made a final effort to convince skeptical
legislators to back his plan, a mixture of two- thirds government spending
projects and one-third tax cuts for consumers and businesses.
"I know there are some that are skeptical of the scale and size of this
recovery plan," Obama said at a White House event, promising a transparent
and open process. "We will invest in what works."
Obama said he held a "sober meeting" with dozens of top business
leaders from around the country Wednesday morning. US firms cut 2.6 million
jobs over the course of 2008, the most since 1945. More than 70,000 additional
job cuts were announced by US companies just in the past week.
But the stimulus vote is expected to fall largely along party lines, despite a
push by Obama for bipartisan support and his rare visit to Capitol Hill Tuesday
to do some arm-twisting among minority Republicans.
While Obama has called for both parties to work together, debate on the bill
was at times very polarized and exposed sharp ideological divisions in the
House chamber Wednesday.
Some Republicans argued they had been excluded from the legislation crafting
process. Democrats grumbled that Republicans failed to recognize the results of
November's general election, when the centre-left leaning party expanded its
majorities in both houses of Congress.
Opposition Republicans presented their own stimulus plan ahead of the vote
Wednesday afternoon, which they said was about half as large, composed
primarily of tax cuts and would create 6.2 million jobs according to their own
analysis.
But Democratic leaders said the opposition's alternative marked a continuation
of former president George W Bush's widely unpopular administration.
"The economics that got us into this mess have been wrong, again and
again, on the economy," said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.
"Americans voted for change. They voted for a new direction. That's what
we're going to get."
Obama has argued his stimulus will save or create 3-4 million new jobs over the
next two years with investments in infrastructure, renewable energy, health,
education and other sectors, as well as tax cuts for 95 per cent of US workers.
Most fellow Democrats support the package, which will move to the upper Senate
chamber if approved by the House of Representatives Wednesday evening.
House Minority Leader John Boehner criticized Obama's stimulus as "a lot
of wasteful spending that won't create jobs and won't help preserve jobs in
America."
"We think there's a better way," Boehner said.
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