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Senate Stimulus Bill Aids Ailing Vets, Elderly, Jobless

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By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, The Associated Press

Published: January 31, 2008

WASHINGTON - A plan to send $500 to $1,000 rebates to all but the richest taxpayers advanced in the Senate on Wednesday after Republicans and Democrats teamed to add aid for disabled veterans, the elderly and the unemployed to a House-passed economic recovery bill.

The package would make individuals with annual incomes of up to $150,000 and couples with incomes up to $300,000 eligible for rebates. Qualifying families would also get $300 for each child.

The Senate Finance Committee approved the measure on a bipartisan vote Wednesday, and senior aides said the Senate could begin voting on it as early as today in hopes of completing it by week's end.

The income limits compare with caps of $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 for couples in an economic stimulus bill the House passed Tuesday.

They were part of a bill written by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., Finance Committee chairman, and backed by Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, the panel's senior Republican. The bill would pump $193 billion into the economy over the next two years. The House measure would inject $161 billion.

The Senate plan would expand rebate eligibility to 20 million older Americans on Social Security and to disabled veterans, and add an unemployment extension for those whose benefits have run out.

"It helps seniors and it helps those hit hardest by the economic downturn," Baucus said of his plan, adding it could win quick approval and be ready for enactment by Feb. 15.

"This cannot be loaded down, or it is likely to sink," Grassley said.

Baucus had proposed letting the richest taxpayers share in rebates, saying it would attract Republican support for his bill. Grassley said lifting what some Republicans deemed "suffocating income limits" in the House plan was a key reason he was backing the bill.

But Senate Democrats balked at the idea of wealthy people, including lawmakers, getting rebate checks. Baucus' new proposal expressly bars members of Congress from getting the checks.

It also goes further than the House bill to bar illegal immigrants from receiving rebates. Under the Senate bill, recipients, their spouses and children would have to have valid Social Security numbers to qualify. The House bill omits that requirement, but it expressly disqualifies nonresident aliens.

In backing the bill, Grassley broke with President Bush and Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Both have said the Senate should simply pass the House-passed stimulus measure.

Grassley said he thought the Senate would act quickly on the bill and he and Baucus would team to try to block further amendments to it. "If Baucus and I can work together, we can keep amendments down, keep it from becoming a Christmas tree," Grassley said.

The bipartisan Senate package faced challenges from the left and right. Democrats and some Republicans said they would move to add money for food stamps and heating aid for the poor.

"We have to thread the needle here. We want to improve the bill, but we don't want to move it so far from the House bill that we slow it down," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto, traveling on Air Force One to California with President Bush on Wednesday, said the disappointing fourth-quarter growth rate should give the Senate greater urgency to pass the bill. "We'd like to see some leadership that will encourage members to put away some of their pet ideas and think about the bigger picture," Fratto said.

Grassley said he does not support $14 billion in additional unemployment insurance for workers whose benefits have run out, but was willing to go along in exchange for Democratic concessions such as lifting House-passed income limits.

The Baucus' bill extends unemployment payments for 13 weeks for those whose benefits have run out, with 26 more weeks available in states with the highest unemployment rates. Only Michigan meets that trigger.

Some Republicans criticized the package as shortsighted and ineffective. "Giving people tax rebates and telling them to go shopping will do virtually nothing to stimulate the economy," said Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., "Only a permanent reduction in taxes will do that."

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