Nelson Backing Off Proposed Stimulus Cuts

Sen. Ben Nelson, a centrist Democrat from Nebraska, is backing off of cuts he recently proposed to the economic stimulus package.

A discussion draft prepared by Nelson's staff has been circulating and became public Thursday.

A House Republican aide provided the Huffington Post with a copy of Nelson's proposed cuts. The draft calls for billions in funding cuts for education, law enforcement and aid to states, among other suggestions. The cuts total nearly $80 billion. See the document here.

Nelson spokesman Jack Thompson called the document irrelevant. "It's several days old and not necessarily reflective of what's in the bill. I don't think it's accurate to cite anything in the list. There isn't a working plan that's before them," he told the Huffington Post.

"There have been changes made to the plan," Thompson emphasized. The negotiations are ongoing, he said, and he wasn't sure what specific changes had been made.

Nelson and Senate Republicans have charged that the current bill is too larded with wasteful spending and he met with Republicans Thursday to talk about slashing it. The moderate group has been dubbed the "job squad" by President Obama.

Nelson's draft is a window into the thinking of moderate and centrist Democrats. It would cut $5.185 billion dedicated to wellness and health care prevention; $15 billion from education, including cuts to Head Start; $150 million from the Violence Against Women Act; $50 million from the Victims of Crime Act; $100 million dedicated to upgrading law-enforcement wireless communications; one billion from energy efficiency and renewable energy programs and $4.5 billion from a loan guarantee program to encourage use of greater energy-efficiency technology.

Two billion dollars for child care and $14 billion for college-tuition grants are listed as "items that were up for discussion that were maintained."

UPDATE: This post has produced a bit of confusion. To clarify: all of the cuts listed on the Nelson document may indeed still be on the chopping block. When asked about the list, however, Nelson's communications director, Jake Thompson, pushed back hard against it. "I don't think it's accurate to cite anything in the list," he said, arguing that it is out of date and irrelevant because the negotiations are ongoing and that "[t]here have been changes made to the plan." He said he didn't know what those changes are. The ongoing negotiations, however, could produce a compromise that proposes cuts along the lines of those listed in this document. Thompson, though, is making the argument that the Nelson document should not be considered a guide to how the negotiations are proceeding. Of course, the contents of the document provide an insight into Nelson's thinking, which is why we posted the document along with Thompson's reservations about its relevance. The conversation between Thompson and the Huffington Post happened before the document had been made public by us or anyone else, so he was not reacting to published reports about it but rather to the prospect of it being made public.

Comments

[genepooled]

Should Econ 101 be a required course for everyone in Congress? The idea of CUTTING the stimulus package when just about every economist out there is wondering if the package is TOO SMALL, shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of a recession. Do they not realize that ANY spending will create jobs? There is no such thing as "wasteful" spending when you are in this sort of crisis! Is there "wasting" of water when you are putting out a fire? We kind of hope that our elected leaders would have some basic understanding that this is not the time to quibble. The stimulus MUST be BIG and it must be BOLD, and if there is a little pork in there, that is a small price to pay for correcting the mess that the old policies have created. Come on!

[Geria]

It isn't that these cats are "out of touch," they are not members of the human race! They tolerate a defense budget in access of 864 billion dollars and call expenditures on education, food stamps, and disabled folks, LARD.I can't stand it any more. This United States is actually a death culture, will spend billions on bombers costing l.5 billion dollars each and used to drop bombs on mud huts, but it won't spend a dime to keep people alive. Oh, I forgot, there was vegatative Terri Schivo, who didn't care! Congress and Bush took special pains to make sure a private decision made by her husband wouldn't be carried out. Thanks a heap, Congress! Cut the damn defense budget, stop preparing for World War III; your planning and spending will bring it about. If we cut defense, we can have everything we need to live in this capitalist paradise, even with massive economic inequality, now worse than the rest of the developed world.

[nana4g]

In a era of unemployment, homelessness, lack of health care, child care, education, crime will rise, including domestic violence against women and children. So, of course, it makes sense to cut all of this funding for these services, right? As long as we are all packing guns, we will be ok. And rest easy, knowing that the Republicans have our best interests at heart.

Unruly, undisciplined, children of age 2 when all they know how to say are NO!

[Geria]

I hope you understand now, it isn't terrorist groups, or any foreigners who are the enemy of this country, it is other Americans, the ones that call themselves conservatives, neo-cons, republicans, market populists or lazzai faire capitalists. They have brought us down, not al Qaeda.

[CaptainVideo]

Do the people of Nebraska really believe that we should spend less on health care, education, crime prevention and similar items? Is the really representing what the people in Nebraska want?

[LeeCalif]

No, but Senator Nelson of Nebraska seems to feel that way.

Sort of like the way Republican Congressmen of Nebraske also feel.

[Geria]

Of course it isn't what the people of Nebraska want, but republicans don't care what people want.

[Mdazes]

There are some things that need to be cut from the bill but Sen Nelson is getting a little to cutting crazy. Time for President Obama to cut Sen Nelson loose.

[Geria]

I'd like to see him cut up.

[userw014]

This stimulus bill is getting too large. Congress is playing Katamari Damancy with it.

[research]

over ten years...

[CaptainVideo]

The economy is facing the most serious financial and economic crisis since the Great Depression. Serious problems cannot be overcome with weak, halfway measures.

While this stimulus package will help stop the decline in the economy and, together with other policies, begin to move the economy toward full employment it is too small to restore the economy to full employment. It being to large is not the problem. The problem is that it is too small to complete the job.

[nana4g]

Too small and too late. And when we need to continue to stimulate with more money later, we will get the same response. FDR's New Deal was successful until the continued funding stopped right at the time things were stabilizing, so no more monies were allocated because he caved and could not get the support, hence, there was a Depression.

California announced today it is furlouging government workers to take days off without pay, mandatory, which will affect services, of course. Seems a "girlie" way to address the situation. Maybe Gov He-Man should try tax cuts.....

[userw014]

I should have been more careful about saying "too large" - I'm not concerned about how much money it involves, but I am concerned that it seems to have earmarks for every congress-critter that needs reaffirmation of their own importance by putting sticky fingers on it.

By loading this bill up with every little thing small minded congress-critters can imagine to stoke their egos, the whole rescue package is being delayed longer and longer.

[Sean Peters]

userw014: "but I am concerned that it seems to have earmarks for every congress-critter that needs reaffirmation of their own importance by putting sticky fingers on it."

Ok, name one. Name an earmark that's been inserted into the bill. The fact is, this bill is more free from earmarks than anything that's passed Congress in years. This cry of "earmarks" is just so much BS designed to make the actual spending provisions sound bad. The thing that's delaying the bill is not that grandstanding congressmen are trying to add too much to it, it's that grandstanding congressmen (Ben Nelson, are you listening?) are trying to make themselves look good by cutting spending out of it... regardless of the fact that we NEED the spending to fix the economy. The spending is the POINT.

[Geria]

The defense budget is larger but killing people is so preferred, we dare not cut it. Don't forget, it all comes from the people's taxes. Just getting it spent on the people (helping them live rather than die) is the problem. Our representative democracy doesn't work at all.

[MsMargaret]

Must have noticed how well McCain's alternative plan did.

[Maxbyte]

That will be three Ringy-Dingies for Senator Nelson. I may underestimate Harry Reid.

[LeeCalif]

That's not possible.

[cplKlyde]

Blue Dog = Rethug.

[MSaxe]

Fun to watch sausage being made too.

[Egalitare]

Yeah, but necessary. No one said this would be easy or pretty to look at.

Sorta like changing diapers on a baby who just started eating solid food. You may not like it, but you know you have to do it.

[Msohio]

Nelson and anyone else not working for this plan, should be targeted for the wrath of the voters. Economists are just bewildered at the republican proposals. Their proposals are responsible for our current demise.

[kylie]

I agree!
Health care, education, well-staffed police and fire dept.'s are all necessary "Pork" that have been diminished by all the previous tax-cuts for the past eight years.
Let's start giving some real Democrats a forum.
Balance.

[DuganS1]

Diminished? Govt spending has increased dramatically at all levels (federal, state, local) in the last eight years, far more than in the Clinton years. We already spend too much on health care, education, police, and fire departments. The bottom line for all this spending, is it's not in any way shape or form stimulus.

[SpectCon]

None of these idiots matter. 58 votes, throw out Nelson and the other 5 democrats with him and the thing still passes. I want to see Nelson, Snow and all the rest filibuster this.

I DARE THEM. Obama and Reid don't have the balls to call this nonsense bluff. I doubt they would get 30 people to support a filibuster. Eff'em .

[bygollymissmolly]

Ben Nelson is not a "centerist Democrat", he is a DINO.

And if you want to see what he's trying to cut, read this:

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/02/05/cuts-women-children/.

It's time for Obama to shut these people down. Tell them "it is what it is and if you don't want to vote for it, then don't". The more he gives to these obstructionists the more they will take.

[maxfax]

"Jake Thompson, pushed back hard against it. "

I would say his cuts are cut.

[Haditup2here]

Why is Nelson so much against research and development based on his proposed cuts? Secondly, I would think cybersecurity would be a high priority -- since the financial identity of Americans are threatened on a daily basis. It would at least be an avenue in hiring IT engineers and professionals who saw their jobs outsource to India and would ACTUALLY be an initiative towards Homeland Security (if you can call it that) as opposed to B u s h 's ILLEGAL wire-tapping.

[dizmo4]

Apparently Nelson doesn't understand that most of modern society has R&D to thank. Were it not for AT&T funding Bell Labs ( pure scientific research) there'd be no transistor , no Unix, no C, no Laser, etc. Those are the foundations of most of modern technology. Without the transistor there would be no PCs, no Cell Phones, no internet, no video game industry, etc.

Without pure R&D there'd be no internet. Its the same idiots like Nelson that would have voted to de-fund ARPANET (precursor to the internet) . Thankfully, indivuduals like Al Gore saw the potential for such a "wasteful program" and voted to continue funding it. Then 25+ years later he's ridiculed for talking about helping create the internet.

[Mugzi]

These jobs would be high ticket technical jobs...a definite plus! Do these people really know what they are denying???

[MSaxe]

Until they get outsourced to lower cost labor.

[MSaxe]

A lot of people are in favor of these programs that do not think they belong in the stimulus bill and should be fought out in the regular budgetary process. Centrists, like Nelson, are in this camp.

The Republicans, who do not want the programs, are using this rationale as an excuse to vote down the stimulus, so it's a precarious notion to support a centrist position. I'm hoping the stimulus bill gets carved down to real "stimulus" alone and allows everyone to fight over these tid-bits and fun stuff later. Love to see them pass.

[CaptainVideo]

"A lot of people are in favor of these programs that do not think they belong in the stimulus bill "

Since they are economic stimuli, why should they not be included in the stimulus bill?

For example, research and development is a very labor intensive activity. Expenditures on research and development creates jobs and income for scientists, laboratory assistants, field workers, data analysts, computer programmers, file clerks, secretaries, etc. These people will spend much of their additional income buying goods and services, which creates a second round of jobs and incomes for workers who produce the goods and services they buy. The second round of workers will spend much of their additional income buying goods and services, which creates jobs and additional income for a third round of workers, etc., etc. etc. The same is the case with ciber security. These stimuli are as real as one can get.

Are you and Nelson really so ignorant that you do not understand this?

Then perhaps you do understand this and are really a concern t.r.o.l.l?