Democrats add billions to stopgap bill

Washington Times

Say funding a raft of special projects would stimulate economy

Even as Congress moves to bail out Wall Street, congressional Democrats called Thursday for billions more in taxpayer dollars to be spent on private shipyards, a new Department of Homeland Security headquarters and hybrid car batteries - all to get the economy going.

As part of their massive new spending plan, Senate Democrats also proposed continuing a ban on U.S. oil shale, a resource Republicans said leaves hundreds of millions of barrels of oil off limits, just a day after the House agreed to lift a ban on oil shale exploration.

Those are all part of a $56.2 billion economic stimulus package Democrats in the Senate have crafted and are .... [more]