Stimulus package now upwards of $850 billion

Despite all of the traditional back and forth that goes on in Washington for even the simplest of matters, the big fiscal stimulus bill is making good progress. The traditional way to make a bill move faster through Congress is to add more money to it. That is what is happening. What started as roughly a $775 billion bill is now supposedly at $850 billion and the end is not necessarily in sight. A Bloomberg article by Brian Faler entitled "Stimulus Plan to Cost $850 Billion, Emanuel Says" gives us that $850 billion number:

The U.S. economic stimulus package being negotiated in Congress will cost $850 billion and will include about $300 billion in tax cuts, said President-elect Barack Obama's incoming chief of staff.

Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel spoke with reporters today at the Capitol in Washington, where lawmakers are rushing to work out details of the two-year package.

Obama and lawmakers had previously been discussing a package of about $775 billion. Earlier today, Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York said the price tag might rise to as much $850 billion.

Personally, I think the final target need to be significantly closer to a full $1.00 trillion, if not $1.25 trillion since it is really not clear how many of these dollars will lead to sustainable economic growth.

In truth, I do not even know whether there is an actual "bill" in progress yet. Rather, there appears to be a rough outline that is currently being negotiated. Once all of the contentious decisions are worked out, committee staff will then draft the actual bill.

Although it is still technically quite possible to complete the bill by the end of the month, there have been quite a few mentions of "before the February recess" and no denial of that target by the Obama transition team, so maybe that is in fact the current working target. I suspect that Barack wants to see how the congressional discussions progress before he publicly mentions a hard target date.

-- Jack Krupansky