Sorry, I see it differently....Perhaps as an accountant, I understand why the administration believes that the $13 dollars a week won't be saved, which was the problem with the last stimulus, folks saved it or paid down debt. It is harder to do that with $13 than with a $300 check.
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A Congressional Budget Office report indicates tax cuts and other benefits for low- and middle-income households are more than three times as effective stimulus as tax cuts for high-income households, the administration said.
The bill also ensures that a family working full-time can raise their children above the poverty line, administration officials said. Currently a family of four with one parent working full time at the minimum wage is about $400 below the poverty line, the White House said. In the same circumstances under the stimulus plan, the family would get $800 from the Making Work Pay tax credit and about $1,200 in additional refundable child tax credits.
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/02/17/Stimuluss_tax_breaks_help_middle_class/UPI-11111234905397/Boosting the Middle Class
Along with the dual collapse of the housing and financial markets, the middle class squeeze played a major role the current economic precariousness. Wages have not kept pace with productivity or with the health and retirement security costs employers have shifted to workers. As a result, the average working family has been forced to take on substantial home equity or credit card debt in recent years to try to maintain living standards. The absence of a firm foundation for middle class prosperity meant that economic growth from 2003 to 2007 was possible only because of the economy's bubble tendency and the excessive reliance on borrowing at every level.
Boosting the middle class through higher wages and increased economic security involves such things as passage of the Employee Free Choice Act that will remove barriers imposed by the current labor law system that frustrate workers' efforts to join unions.
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Program is an essential step for the U.S. to take in pulling the economy out of this historic slump. As the House leadership's version of ARRP is negotiated in the House and with the Senate, it is critical that the provisions aiding states and low-income populations remain the centerpiece and that any business tax cuts be limited. To achieve a balanced and long-lasting prosperity, however, other actions will be needed to resolve the housing crisis and to rebuild the middle class. Without such policies, the recovery and reinvestment plan might create a short-term rebound but one that will fizzle out after two or three years.
The new administration gives every indication that it is aware of the need for these complementary actions. Time will tell whether it can achieve initial success on the economic recovery front and build the political support to turn recovery into sustained prosperity.
James Parrott is deputy director and chief economist of the Fiscal Policy Institute. He has been studying and writing about the New York economy since he landed in New York City a quarter century ago.
http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/economy/20090122/21/2805But even if they are, the Obama administration faces a much harder task, too: creating jobs that won't disappear once a bridge is fixed. What's needed are millions of permanent jobs that would put legions of laid-off people back to work for years to come.
It's too soon to know whether many of the 2.5 million jobs the president-elect has said he intends to "save or create" within his first two years would become permanent. And with economic signs worsening, Obama wants to raise the goal to 3 million jobs, a presidential transition official said.
For now, given the depth of the recession, the Obama plan focuses on the early months.
By embracing projects already in the pipeline and stressing infrastructure repairs, parts of the plan could roll out soon -- perhaps within weeks -- creating jobs and stirring economic activity. That way, the new administration also buys time to allocate money for other projects that might take years to complete.
"Looking after the existing infrastructure is not as exciting as cutting ribbons on new projects, but it could generate jobs quickly," Martin Baily, who served as President Bill Clinton's top economist and is now at the Brookings Institution, told Congress.
Economists say the combination of tax cuts and infrastructure spending could deliver a quick one-two punch against the recession: the faster-acting tax breaks, plus the time-released benefits of infrastructure spending.
http://www.mlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2008/12/will_obamas_stimulus_work_fast.html
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