Now that the Senate has passed its version of the recovery and reinvestment bill, the conference committee will have to work out the discrepencies between the House and Senate bills. One big difference is funds for school construction, which were completely stripped by the Senate. During his town hall meeting in Florida today, Obama twice touted the school construction funds, calling education funding “the highest priority.” Watch it:
Speaking yesterday to a town hall audience in Indiana, Obama was even more blunt: “Now, I’ll be honest with you, the Senate version cut a lot of these education dollars. I would like to see some of it restored.”
Update
A Center for American Progress analysis finds that the Senate version of the bill creates “9 to 12 percent fewer jobs created or saved than the House-passed legislation despite costing $16 billion more.” The House bill would create between 343,000 and 444,000 more jobs than the Senate compromise.
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