Boyd Successful in Making Stimulus Better More Streamlined

Press Release

Boyd Successful in Making Stimulus Better More Streamlined

U.S. Congressman Allen Boyd (D-North Florida) today voted for the final stimulus package in the House of Representatives, after successfully fighting to streamline the bill and lower the cost from the original House version. The final stimulus package includes $320 in spending initiatives compared to $544 billion in the original House stimulus bill.

"I voted against the original stimulus bill in the House because I knew that we could do better and develop a stimulus bill that was smarter and includes provisions that will truly stimulate and strengthen our economy," said Congressman Boyd. "While the final stimulus bill isn't perfect, it's a better bill, and it's only better because many of us, including myself, were firm in our calls to cut the extra, unstimulative spending and put the focus on provisions that are temporary, targeted, and timely."

At the insistence of Congressman Boyd and the Blue Dog Coalition, the final stimulus bill was streamlined to include critical investments in transportation infrastructure and water and sewer projects, as well as smart tax relief for families and small businesses. The stimulative provisions advocated by Congressman Boyd include:

Transportation infrastructure investments to improve roads, bridges, flood control, clean water projects, and other infrastructure projects

Education infrastructure for school modernization, renovation, and repair

Grants to states for job training and workforce development

Critical Investments in rural communities such as broadband services and wastewater projects

Congressman Boyd and the Blue Dogs also were successful in removing unstimulative and even unnecessary provisions from the final stimulus bill, such as:

Funding to sod the National Mall

A tax break for movie producers to buy motion picture films

Funding for smoking cessation activities

The final stimulus package is expected to create or save approximately 8,300 jobs in the 2nd District of Florida alone and over 200,000 jobs throughout the state of Florida.

The bill also gets money into the hands of Americans who are going to spend it quickly through temporary tax provisions, such as the expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit and the increase of the refundable portion of the child credit. Additionally, it increases unemployment benefits and provides more funding for food stamps and a one time payment to recipients of Social Security and veterans receiving disability compensation and pension benefits. Finally, the stimulus bill helps small businesses quickly recover costs of new capital investments by extending the bonus depreciation for businesses making investments in plants and equipment in 2009.

"While I supported this stimulus package, I also want to be very clear and upfront with the people I represent - this stimulus package is not a cure-all for our serious economic problems. In order to strengthen our economy in the short and long run, we must get serious about fiscal responsibility and get on a path toward fiscal sanity," Boyd stated. "If we don't do this and continue to deficit spend, then the level of our national debt - the likes of which we have never seen before - will be worse than the current recession. I am eager to tackle our long-term financial problems head on, and I am hopeful that President Obama's Fiscal Summit in the coming weeks will be the first step to laying out a framework to fiscal responsibility."

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