In Congress, Aides Start to Map Talks on Stimulus

Congressional aides worked Sunday to identify differences between the House and Senate economic stimulus packages in advance of final negotiations scheduled to begin after the Senate's anticipated approval of its measure on Tuesday. Formal talks will not begin before the Senate passes its $827 billion version of the plan; the House bill costs about $819 billion. Once the Senate votes, aides said, the first order of business in the bicameral talks will be to set an overall dollar figure and then begin to sort out the differences in spending and tax changes in the two measures.

"The overlap is 90-plus percent," Lawrence Summers, a top economic adviser to Mr. Obama, said on "Fox News Sunday." "We've got to work through the differences, find the best bill we possibly can, and get it in place as quickly as possible to contain what is a very damaging and potentially deflationary spiral."

President Obama is to travel to Indiana and Florida this week to rally public support for the plan, and the White House has begun emphasizing the endorsement of the proposal by business and industry groups.

Despite differences between House and Senate versions, the final product is coming into view:

1) It's likely to be in the range of $800 billion. That's what Obama wants, and that's what both houses are delivering: $819 billion in the House and $827 billion in the Senate. The Senate bill includes more than $100 billion more in tax cuts and $100 billion less in spending.

2) Obama's major tax cut — up to $500 for individuals and $1,000 for families who fall under income thresholds in both 2009 and 2010 — is largely intact. It will cost about $140 billion, or nearly 20% of the overall plan.

3) Emergency assistance to those hardest hit by the recession, including the unemployed and families needing health care and food stamps, also survived.

The Senate compromise version of the bill allocates $6.65 billion to broadband investments, $350 million to broadband mapping, and $100 million to distance learning and telemedicine grants and loans.

Almost all of the $7.1 billion in broadband will be channeled through the Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration, apparently thwarting an effort by some rural-focused senators to split broadband funds with the Agriculture Department, as the House-passed version had done.

This Senate version deletes $2.85 billion that the House-passed version had allocated to broadband grants that met certain minimum specific speed requirements. It also deleted the $2.85 billion that the House-passed version had allocated to the Agriculture Department's Rural Utilities Service.

The new Senate agreement preserves original language that "up to $350 million may be expended" pursuant to the Broadband Data Improvement Act. The new Senate stimulus legislation also calls for NTIA to create "a comprehensive nationwide inventory map of existing broadband service capability and availability in the United States."