U.S. President Barack Obama has scored a significant victory as the Congress on Friday finally approved his massive stimulus package, an unprecedented attempt to jump-start the ailing American economy.
The 787-billion-dollar package was approved by a vote of 246-183 in the House of Representatives but with no Republican support. Hours later, the bill advanced in the Senate by a vote of 60-38, three centrist Republicans joined Democrats to move the legislation forward.
Senator Sherrod Brown, who was in Ohio for his late mother's memorial service, flew back to Washington and cast the decisive 60th "Yes" vote for the bill.
Biggest winner
As the 1,071-page bill works its way toward President Barack Obama's desk, analysts believe that the new president was emerging as the biggest winner. Obama has set a Feb. 16 deadline for the bill.
In the past weeks, Obama aggressively wooed Republicans with little to show for it. He used his popularity and bully pulpit to get the sluggish divided Congress to work through the package in a relatively short time.
"Barack Obama, in just a few short weeks as president, has passed one of the biggest packages for economic recovery in our nation's history," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The approval also capped an early period of accomplishment for the Democrats, who won control of the White House and expanded their majorities in Congress in last fall's elections, said U.S. media.
The final version on the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Conference Report" was completed just before 11 p.m. Thursday night local time (0400 GMT Friday) and posted online.
In addition to roughly 286 billion dollars in tax cuts and 54 billion dollars for cash-strapped states, the package contains 311 billion dollars in appropriations, including 120 billion dollars in infrastructure, 14.2 billion dollars for health care, 105.9 billion dollars for education and training.
It also includes more than 37.5 billion dollars for energy infrastructure, 24.3 billion dollars for those impacted by the economic crisis and 7.8 billion dollars for law enforcement and other programs.
Obama hailed the bill, noting it will create over 3.5 million jobs in the next two years.
"It's a plan that will ignite spending by businesses and consumers, make the investments necessary for lasting economic growth and prosperity and save or create more than 3.5 million jobs over the next two years," said Obama in an address to business leaders at the White House earlier Friday.
"The goal at the heart of this plan is to create jobs, not just any jobs but jobs doing the work America needs done," said the president.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office noted that the bill could increase employment in a range of 800,000 to 2.3 million jobs by the fourth quarter of 2009 and 1.2 million to 3.6 million by the fourth quarter of 2010.
"We're proud of the product ... this is historical and transformational," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Republicans have fought for more tax relief and less spending, but House Minority Leader John Boehner complained, "all the talk we've heard about bipartisanship...has gone down the drain."
Partisan rifts
The Senate and House originally passed different versions of the bill. The votes Friday are on the compromise version of the measure.
The differences were reconciled after a furious day of private negotiations which involved House and Senate leaders, Obama administration officials and three moderate Republican Senators, who give the key support for the stimulus package.
However, many Republican lawmakers strongly slammed the bill, saying it was more a spending bill and was a colossal waste of money.