The recovery plan: shock & awe for a shaken nation

[Pirate Smile]

Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON – America is bringing shock and awe to the home front, using dollars instead of bombs.
It's the military doctrine of lightning force — fast and brute, or as brute as the shaken country can manage — applied to the campaign for economic recovery.

With a record-busting stimulus plan, the U.S. is marshaling resources against economic catastrophe in ways not seen since Franklin Roosevelt put the New Deal in motion.
President Barack Obama is going with the best deal he could get. The stimulus bill is a landmark legislative achievement for a new president who inherited economic spoilage along with the spoils of power. Now the nation anxiously waits to see if it works.

Undermining federal balance sheets that were already deeply in the red, Obama and Congress settled on a nearly $800 billion plan that aims to spend more on the crisis at hand than the government has spent waging the Iraq war for six years.
The idea: fast cash, and lots of it, but with a strategic view to the future.
Some dollars will flow quickly into wallets — and right out again.

The stimulus plan will mean thousands of dollars in tax breaks for first-time home buyers and people buying new cars. Lower- and middle-income taxpayers will get an extra $13 a week in their paychecks this year, and about $8 a week next year. Unemployment checks will go up $25 a week, and keep coming longer. Food stamp benefits for 30 million Americans will rise. Short-term health insurance will become more affordable for many losing their jobs.

The success of the stimulus package may be measured less by visible achievements than by what does not happen — the home that is not foreclosed, the family that doesn't slip into poverty, the disease that does not go undiagnosed.
"The one thing we'll never know is what would have happened if we didn't do it," said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist for Global Insight of Lexington, Mass.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090213/ap_on_go_pr_wh/stimulus_stakes;_ylt=AjUiyVJttr5eQO4YnNn1hyeyFz4D

[UpInArms]

1. oooohhhhh! ahhhhhhhh! $13 a week!

don't spend it all in one place! (don't go into the grocery store or the gas station!)

[FrenchieCat]

2. Most Democrats were crying how there shouldn't be any tax cuts.....

and so there are.....one of which will give individuals 50-65 dollars per month in additional money; too small to save, and so it will be spent...and that is the purpose of this tax cut.....and now you're ridiculing it?

What side are you on? :shrug:

[UpInArms]

4. sorry - not ridiculing it - I just got a pay cut of $50 a week

so I guess anything right now would be good

[pasto76]

6. too small to do ANYTHING with it

Which is the point. Why not make it 50 bucks a week? now we talking turkey. THat can pay a utility bill, thats 3 tanks fo gas for me. thats daycare for the midget for a day.
WTF are are you going to do with 13 bucks?

might as well piss it away on cheetos and burgers.

[FrenchieCat]

7. your utility bill is due everyweek? Mine is due once a month......

and 50 to 65 (depending on how many weeks in the month) per month or 100 to 130 dollars for married couples pays for a chunk of exactly what you've described.

and the point is for the amount to be small to save.....

And 50 to 65 dollars will buy you 10 to 13 Burgers and Cheeto meals at $5.00 a meal per month....which is eating out quite a bit, if you ain't eating out now.

[sinkingfeeling]

3. Well, it's more than I received in Bush's Giant Tax Cut of 2001. I got a whole $16 a month!

[latebloomer]

5. hate to tell ya

but I read it was $13 every 2-week pay period.

I'm gonna go SHOPPIN'!!

[FrenchieCat]

8. There are other tax provisions in this bill as well.......

and the entire point coming from Democrats was that Tax cuts are evil anyways. remember? :shrug:

[Old Codger]

9. 15

I read it was 15 per pay period based on 26 pay periods a year.... so 30 a month.....or so..

[Politicub]

10. There's so much more to the bill than this

I have to give major props to President Obama for such a major accomplishment in his first few weeks of his presidency.

[sutz12]

11. That's a LOT of negative highlighting.

I hate how they are using Naomi Klien-like euphemisms in this article. There's a lot of red meat for the RWers.

This is hardly a puff piece on the stimulus bill.

[Sisaruus]

12. I'm not feeling wealthy

as the property taxes on my home just increased by $125 a month.