I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
The House Appropriations Committee, chaired by Rep. David Obey (D-WI), released the incoming Obama administration’s proposed economic stimulus package Thursday. The full text of the bill is available at this link; the summary only is available here.
Here’s a small sampling of stories across media outlets; it’s not hard to see at a glance that Dems and GOP are split in their support of the bill:
Democrats unveil stimulus plan; Republicans cry ‘pork’ – MiamiHerald.com
Dem Leader: Obama Stimulus Package is Too Small – USNews.com
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, yes?
And here’s the opening grafs of the bill’s summary:
The economy is in a crisis not seen since the Great Depression. Credit is frozen, consumer purchasing power is in decline, in the last four months the country has lost 2 million jobs and we are expected to lose another 3 to 5 million in the next year. Conservative economist Mark Zandi was blunt: “the economy is shutting down.”
This bill is the first crucial step in a concerted effort to create and save 3 to 4 million jobs, jumpstart our economy, and begin the process of transforming it for the 21st century with $275
billion in economic recovery tax cuts and $550 billion in thoughtful and carefully targeted priority investments with unprecedented accountability measures built in.
That’s some frank and pointed language for an appropriations bill; compare the summary and the bill text of President Bush’s last stimulus package and you’ll see a striking difference. The Obama bill text actually includes the summary, whereas the last bill did not include the text of the summary.
Certainly looks like somebody’s trying to hammer a point home about the seriousness and urgency of the situation. Maybe the more conservative members of Congress didn’t read the summary yet.
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