Now the Congressional Budget Office has scored the Senate version of the stimulus and reports that 78 percent of the bill will be spent by October 2010 (that is, over the next two fiscal years). This is faster than the scoring of the House version that clocked in at 64 percent over the same period, thanks in part to the addition of the irksome need to fix the Alternative Minimum Tax, which goes into effect immediately, and the Senate's plan to give federal fiscal aid to states in one large block instead of two. While I doubt this will satisfy the bill's ardent critics, who complain about the timing of the stimulus because complaining about the stimulus itself is unpopular, it is good news for the efficacy of the legislation.
Incidentally, the AMT fix has bothered me for years. A tax originally targeted at the wealthy in order to prevent tax evasion, it was never linked to inflation and now affects people across the board, but Congress can never work up the political courage to modify or abolish it. Thus, every year they have to take a huge budget hit as they exempt people it wasn't meant to tax. Maybe the president can work in time on his agenda to fix the AMT in the next four years (as part of a fiscal responsibility grand bargain? oooo!), though I'm not holding my breath.
-- Tim Fernholz
