McCain Points Out Obama’s Embellishments On Stimulus Package

Barack Obama told a crowd in Golden, Colorado yesterday that he proposed the plan that eventually became the $150 billion economic stimulus package that was passed by Congress early this year. “In January, I outlined a plan to help revive our faltering economy, which formed the basis for a bipartisan stimulus package that passed the Congress,” Obama said. John McCain responded at a rally in Ohio. “Let’s have straight talk,” John McCain said. “Today Obama claimed the congressional stimulus package was his idea. That’s news to those of us in Congress who supported it. Senator Obama didn’t even show up to vote.” It’s true, Obama wasn’t there to even vote present on the bill. McCain did vote for the bill which passed the Senate 81-16 on February 7, 2008. Obama, Hillary Clinton and McCain all had proposed stimulus programs around that time, but were looped out of the negotiations because Nancy Pelosi wanted bi-partisan participation. “Pelosi and Reid seemed to be ignoring the detailed policy solutions being put out by her party’s White House hopefuls,” wrote the Washington Post on January 23. The Obama camp argues Obama “was the only candidate to propose a fiscal stimulus plan centered on tax rebate checks for the broad majority of Americans. The bipartisan bill that passed less than a month later was centered on rebate checks to the broad middle class along the lines of what Obama proposed.”
Alan Cosgrove