State Aid, School Construction Must Be Restored in Recovery Package

by Mike Hall, Feb 11, 2009

Reports today indicate that House and Senate negotiators are close to reaching agreement on an economic recovery package. The tentative deal, according to the Associated Press, is pegged at about $790 billion, and talks are continuing on how the money would be allocated.

The Senate yesterday passed its version of the bill that reduced or eliminated several job-creating provisions in the House-passed bill, including aid for fiscally strapped states, infrastructure projects and education. The conference to iron out the differences is under way.

In letters to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), AFL-CIO Government Affairs Director Bill Samuel urges that the state aid be restored, along with funds for school construction, among other provisions.

He writes that the House bill’s investment provisions

are specifically targeted to create jobs and keep workers from losing the jobs they have now.

How do such investments create jobs? Our friends at the Center for American Progress have posted a video primer that traces the path of the investment from Washington to working families on Main Street. Click here to watch.

In the letters, Samuel also writes that the “much stronger and more effective” Senate version of the Buy American provisions should be included. (Click here to read the full text.)

The final bill is expected to come to a House vote tomorrow and a Senate vote Friday, and to get to President Obama’s desk before the Presidents Day recess.

Pelosi has said she will attempt to strengthen the bill by resorting some of the House provisions. But as she told reporters:

You cannot allow the perfect to be the enemy of the effective and of the necessary, and we will not.

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