ALEX COHEN, host:
This is Day to Day. I'm Alex Cohen. In a few minutes, the Vatican goes viral; it's the Pope's YouTube channel, that story just ahead. First though, the House is expected to vote on President Obama's proposed stimulus package today. The president says he's confident about its passage.
President BARACK OBAMA: Most of the money that we're investing as part of this plan will get out the door immediately and go directly to job creation, generating, or saving three to four million new jobs. And the vast majority of these jobs will be created in the private sector, because as these CEOs well know, business, not government, is the engine of growth in this country.
COHEN: Joining me now to discuss the $825 billion stimulus bill is Politico's Victoria McGrane. And Victoria, what are some of the industries that will receive a boost from this bill?
Ms. VICTORIA MCGRANE (Staff Reporter, Politico): Well, pretty much, you know, these days, it looks like pretty much everyone's getting something. Businesses are getting a host of different tax measures, the environmental, you know, green jobs, construction is a big winner, transit is getting some money. Education is a huge area where they're pumping in a lot of money to rebuild schools, modernize schools, do a host of things, sort of every element of the education system should benefit from this package.
COHEN: Well, there must be some folks who aren't benefiting from this. Which industries are not receiving any aid from this bill?
Ms. MCGRANE: One of the biggest losers was a, you know, big news story yesterday that the president asked House Democrats to take out a provision to give money to help low income women get contraception, so that's out. Housing is an area that isn't getting a lot of direct help in this stimulus. The president has said more is coming on that front but the realtors and home builders had been looking for larger tax credit for home buyers, and possibly some government money to help reduce interest rates and neither of those things are in there though. Senate Republicans are interested in this mortgage interest rate buy down idea, and may be pushing to get that in the Senate version of the stimulus.
COHEN: President Obama has signaled that he is willing to compromise over the bill. What is his administration willing to give up?
Ms. MCGRANE: Well, they've already shown that, you know, they were willing to take out some of these more controversial small items that Republicans have been making a lot of noise about. The contraception provision was one of them. Another was $200 million to go help reseed the National Mall, which, if you live in Washington like I do, it is kind of a mess. But he did point blank tell them, House Republicans, yesterday that he wasn't going to budge on their complaints about tax refunds for low - the lowest income people, people who don't pay income tax. That he is going to stay his ground on that.
COHEN: There has been some criticism of this proposal that it doesn't do enough to change how the government spends money, especially when it comes to things like infrastructure. What are your thoughts?
Ms. MCGRANE: You know there's always going to be a lot of criticism. I think to one extent, you know, the Republicans are just trying to be the opposition party despite all the outreach that the White House is trying to give to them. At the end of the day, a lot of economists say you just need to spend money. It doesn't matter how you do it.
But there have been criticisms that it's increasing government involvement too much on the other end. That it is changing how, especially on the education front. There have been some who say this is, you know, getting the federal government much more involved in an area that's traditionally been the preview of state and local governments. So everyone's a critic.
COHEN: Victoria, what are some of the differences we might see between the House stimulus bill and the Senate's version?
Ms. MCGRANE: Well, one big difference that's sure to be a fight in conference and could slow the progress of the bill is on Medicare funds to state. This came up in the Senate finance mark-up yesterday. Republicans and rural Democrats overrode a compromise that had been put together by the Democratic chairman, basically taking away money from large states.
They'd been promised a greater share of this bonus money that the stimulus is giving to them. So that is a big difference between the House version and could be an obstacle to getting a bill done and into the president's desk.
COHEN: And finally, Victoria, how soon might we actually see some of this money starting to flow?
Ms. MCGRANE: That's something that's also, you know, still in the progress. The CDO found that only two thirds of the money would be coming, you know, sort of in this immediate time frame that they were hoping to see, but the Senate is making changes to get 75 percent of that sort of out, you know, in the first year. That was, you know, another complaint that Republicans were making last week, that, you know, the money is not coming fast enough, so they're going to probably fiddle with it, so they get that stamp of approval from the CDO that the money's going to go quickly.
COHEN: Politico.com's Victoria McGrane. Thank you.
Ms. MCGRANE: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
