Stimulus package compromise

More Bipartisanship, Less Stimulus

The plan is now more weighted than before toward tax cuts (which will account for more than 40 percent of the overall cost of the package) that will do little or nothing to stimulate job creation for a country than lost almost 600,000 positions in January alone. As French President Nicolas Sarkozy, no liberal, said Friday of countries that opt for tax cuts rather than stimulus: The approach "will bring them nothing" in the way of economic renewal.

The Senate's increased emphasis on tax cuts comes at the expense of the sort of aggressive spending that might actually get a stalled economy moving.

Spending for school construction that would actually have put people to work -- while at the same time investing in the future -- has been slashed.

Title I funding increases have been cut.

Supplemental transportation funding has been hacked.

Axed, as well, has been $90 million that was to have been allocated to plan for and manage a potential flu pandemic that economists and public health experts worry could shutter remaining businesses, bring the economy to a complete standstill and throw the country into a deep depression.

The bottom line is that, under the Senate plan:

* States will get less aid.

* Schools will get less help.

* Job creation programs will be less well funded.

* Preparations to combat potential public health disasters -- which could put the final nail in the economy's coffin -- will not be made.

We are in for a long, long ride!