The Senate stimulus package

[13:45]
As the Senate prepares for a 17:30 cloture vote on its version of the impending economic stimulus package, I want to describe briefly how the Senate's version differs from the House-passed version.

It appears that the tax rebate checks under the Senate plan would go to any taxpayer who earned $3000 in 2007. Those checks would be in the amount of $500 for a single taxpayer or $1000 for couples. The House checks would be a bit higher at $600/$1200.

However, the Senate has raised the income limitations on those checks. Taxpayers earning over $150k in 2007 ($300k for couples) would not get a check. The House limitations are at $75k/$150k.

Seniors earning social security money also get rebate checks under the Senate plan, whereas they would not receive checks under the terms of the House stimulus package.

The Senate package would extend tax credits for investment in alternative energy projects. For example, a company retrofitting its offices with a solar power array could claim tax credits as a way to help pay for the project. Those tax credits were in effect in 2007 but as I understand it, they are set to expire either this tax year or the next.

Disabled veterans are in line to get some benefits from the Senate package but not from the House package. Sorry for the vagueness here; I don't have the details.

Reid announced this afternoon (14:12) that some low-income heating assistance funds as well as some housing-related provisions would appear in the Senate version. The House version did not include the low-income heating assistance but it did include the housing provisions. The housing provisions raise the loan limits that quasi-governmental bodies like Freddie mac and Fannie Mae can lend to homebuyers.

The Senate package also grants businesses more generous tax loss benefits. For example, companies that stand to lose money in 2008 (ahem, banks) can count those losses against gains they accrued in the previous five tax years in order to get a tax rebate check amounting to a refund of taxes previously paid. Pretty sweet deal for businesses that have suddenly fallen on hard times.

There are probably some other differences between the Senate and House versions of the packages but that's all I have been able to verify. Again, sixty senators need to vote "aye" this afternoon to keep the Senate's version of the stimulus alive.

Of course, senators will try to reintroduce each of these benefit provisions one-by-one as amendments to the underlying bill, i.e. the House-passed version. So, even if cloture fails, some of these provisions could still end up in the Senate-passed version of the package. It will then remain to be seen whether these provisions make it into the final conference report.