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Senior Citizen Politics
Democrats Win Battle to Add Low-Income Senior
Citizens to Economic Stimulus Plan
Seniors depending on Social Security to get $300
checks in compromise
 Feb.
8, 2008 – It is a done deal – low-income senior citizens and disabled
veterans will be included in the government’s play to stimulate the
lagging economy. Congress has sent the final bill to the White House for
President George Bush’s signature and he said yesterday it was “good
legislation.”
Based on the April 15 income tax filings, about 111
million households, including about 21 million senior citizens that
depend on Social Security, will share in $168 billion the government
plans to spend in an effort to boost the economy. The final bill also
adds about 250,000 disabled veterans that were excluded from the
original House plan.
Sen. Max Baucus, Chair of the Senate Finance
Committee, led the fight to allow the seniors and veterans be included.
The first attempt to add the committee’s amendments to the House plan
failed by one vote in the Senate and Republican’s refused to budge.
Sen. John McCain, a candidate for the GOP
presidential nomination, who is under attack by conservatives in his
party, failed to vote in that effort Wednesday.
McCain and several other Republicans moved to
support the plan on Thursday, after there was some trimming to the
amount senior citizens will receive. In the original plan by the Senate
Finance Committee the elderly were to get $500 checks. In the bill that
won more Republican backing, that amount was cut back to $300.
President Bush, speaking to the Conservative
Political Action Conference shortly after Congress reached agreement,
said, “We're in a period of economic uncertainty, and we've acted again.
I want to thank the members for passing a good piece of legislation
which I will sign into law next week. I want you all to understand that
this bill reflects our principles. It is robust. It is pro-growth. It
stimulates business investment. And it puts money into the hands of
American consumers.”
“I kept saying that the Senate could improve on the
House package and get it all done before February 15, and that’s exactly
what’s happened. Thanks to some persistence in the Senate and the good
sense of the House tonight, the President now gets to sign a better
economic stimulus bill into law,” said Baucus.
“There were many, many calls to simply accept the
original economic stimulus agreement and pass it without changes. But I
had more than 20 million good reasons to stick to my guns on improving
it. The 20 million seniors and 250,000 disabled veterans we added to
this economic stimulus plan are part of the American family, and they
will contribute these funds to the American economy. Adding these folks
to the economic stimulus plan was the morally right thing to do and the
fiscally right thing to do. I’ll be proud to see the President sign this
into law.”
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said the first
rebate checks would go out in May, and the distribution would be done by
the end of the summer, according to a report by Bloomberg.
``We at Treasury and the IRS have our work cut out
for us,'' he said after the votes last night. ``We're trying to do
something we've never done before,'' and ``so we're going to move
quickly and make a difference.''
Paulson encouraged taxpayers to file their 2007 tax
returns early.
The Finance plan also included safeguards missing
from the House bill to ensure that illegal immigrants could not receive
rebates, which the House approved tonight as well.
The Senate voted 81-16 today to accept the
bipartisan Finance Committee provisions and to send the measure back to
the House for final approval.
A summary of amendment is available on the
Finance Committee website at
http://www.finance.senate.gov/sitepages/legislation.htm
>>
More details at Bloomberg
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