AFTER a couple of weeks in which his presidency seemed to have got off to a bumpy start, Barack Obama at last received some good news. On the night of Monday February 9th a stimulus package worth a whopping $838 billion over the next two years passed a crucial test in the Senate. There are several procedural hurdles still to clear but the vote, which required at least 60 senators to agree to end the debate (which can otherwise be talked out indefinitely, in a process called filibustering), went Mr Obama’s way.
The stimulus bill is not entirely out of the woods yet. The substantive Senate vote (which requires only a simple majority, now that the “cloture” vote has gone through) should be a formality when it takes place later on Tuesday. But there is still some hard work to be done reconciling the House and Senate versions. Although the two overall sums of money sound similar, this masks some important differences.