The Business Week

摘要

The House says $819 billion. The Senate, so far, says $900 billion. But whether it's enormous or even more enormous, President Barack Obama's stimulus package looks set to sail through Congress. The House passed it Jan. 28 on a mostly party-line vote, with Republicans grousing about being frozen out of the process. Signs of a more collegial atmosphere surfaced in the Senate, which tacked on a one-year fix to prevent the Alternative Minimum Tax from whacking more folks. Meantime, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, fresh from confirmation on Jan. 26, promised to exclude lobbyists from bailout spending decisions and pull back the curtain on the arcane process of awarding funds to banks. And the Fed, meeting on Jan. 27-28, repeated that it's ready to buy long-term Treasuries but won't do so yet, which seemed to disappoint bond traders.