NYT: US Economy - Technology’s Fingerprints on the Stimulus Bill - by Charlie Savage and David Kirkpatrick

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Technology’s Fingerprints on the Stimulus Bill - by Charlie Savage and David Kirkpatrick

While much of the sprawling $800 billion legislation consists of tax cuts and broad spending increases for existing programs, like $27 billion on highways and $8.4 billion on public transit, the biggest outlay on new initiatives is essentially a technology industry wish list: in the Senate version, about $7 billion for expanding high-speed Internet access, some $20 billion for building a so-called smart grid power network and $20 billion for digitizing health records.

To many on K Street, the stimulus bill was the clearest guide to the new administration’s closest friends in the business world. What oil was to President Bush, some say, clean energy and technology are to the Obama White House. The stimulus package cleared the key procedural hurdle on Friday in the Senate after Maine Republican Senators Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania broke ranks with their fellow Republicans and voted with the Democrats majority on Friday to pass the bill. The final vote on the amended bill will be tomorrow.