MSNBC just announced that the US Senate has approved their $838 million stimulus bill. Their version one close enough to the bill ratified by Congress about a week ago but it had $100 billion in spending trimmed in a move to win the votes of moderate Republicans. Republican Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania broke ranks with their party and helped pass the bill 61 to 36.

I haven't had the opportunity to look at the bills, but here's some differences highlighted in the article :

House's bill costs $819 billion. Senate, $838 billion.
Senate : Tax breaks for new cars
Senate Houses' allocation for NASA by $50 million
Senate : They sneaked in money for "network monitoring"

Now the Senate and Congress will be duking it out for a final bill to go to the President. Ugh. If only they had a system by which people could see all these changes and differences easily.

The Republicans in the House showed that, although they happily bailed out big bank CEOs, their opposition to bailing out working class Americans continues. Not one Republican in the House supported Obama's Stimulus for America bill, even those who supported the bank bailout. Seems a continuation of the Republican redistribution of wealth to the wealthy plan. Tell the Republican Senators that they are now on notice. Support Obama's stimulus plan for America or admit they are elitists who are only willing to bail out the wealthy:

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