Jobs bill contains “doctor fix”, Patriot Act extensions

[OnePimpTiger]

Jobs bill contains “doctor fix”, Patriot Act extensions

Senators Max Baucus and Charles Grassley announced the creation of a bipartisan stimulus bill for immediate consideration, with heavy emphasis on “bipartisan” and light emphasis on “jobs"...

The bill includes an infusion of funds into the Highway Trust Fund, the so-called doc fix for Medicare reimbursements, and an extension of unemployment insurance and other benefits for out of work people.

It also includes several provisions outside the panel’s jurisdiction, like a reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act, Patriot Act, the national flood insurance program, and $1.5 billion in agriculture disaster assistance.

The Patriot Act extension addition looks like a protection plan for Obama against the Left. If the Senate passed that on its own, it would open yet another rift with that wing of the party, on top of the problems Obama created with his apparent endorsement of bonuses at Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan earlier this week, and the loss of the public option in the ObamaCare bill. Obama certainly doesn’t need to take the blame for another surrender from his campaign positions, although if Senate Democrats back this amendment, it may well still have the same effect on the Left’s enthusiasm for the midterm elections.

However, the inclusion of the “doctor fix” will be significant to the ObamaCare debate if Congress rushes this stimulus package to the White House. It will force the CBO to rescore the Senate bill before the vote in the House — and the doctor fix puts ObamaCare firmly in the position of adding to the deficit, even in the short term. The exposure of that will almost certainly force some House Democrats to oppose the Senate version, which means that Pelosi will have deep trouble in getting the bill out — especially with the other problems in the Senate bill, such as the abortion language and the Cadillac tax, as well as the lack of a public option.

The fact that this "jobs" bill will actually create very few jobs aside, the blatant attempt to push through Patriot Act extensions in a "jobs" bill to avoid catching flak for trying to pass them on their own is pretty low-handed. I get really tired of all the pork and piggy-backing unrelated legislation. The Patriot Act has nothing to do with creating jobs...if the President thinks it needs to be extended, that needs to be voted on separately. And yes, I know, Republicans do it too...all politicians do it and it's wrong regardless of party affiliation.

[shortking98]

This whole stimulus stuff has been one frustration after another. When they first came out and said it would involve massive infrastructure spending I was glad since this is one area that definitely needs to be revamped. Most of our highways were built in the 60s and 70s and are breaking down and no longer serve their purpose. Public transit in urban areas in the US lags far behind that of other developed countries (think Europe). However, since everything had to be "shovel ready" in order to be funded, you ended up getting a bunch of quick fixes and money grabs with a few worthwhile projects that had been designed but lacked funding. For the most part, none of the massive scale projects needed were designed because no one anticipated being able to "find" that kind of funding. To me, it really is a shame that the focus has been for the most part on short term fixes and I hope they begin to transition that into long term fixes that can revitalize our metro areas.