Here's who will benefit from stimulus accord

[babylonsister]

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=13394

Here's who will benefit from stimulus accord

Federal aid would flow to a majority of taxpayers, first-time home buyers, college students and the unemployed under compromise bill.

By Noam N. Levey / Los Angeles Times


snip//

College students

Many people paying for college would get a $2,500 tax credit for tuition and other education-related expenses, such as books and computers.

Eligible college students would also receive higher Pell Grants, thanks to a $400 boost in the maximum grant, to $5,250.

People affected by the downturn

Reflecting the priorities of the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress, the most direct aid in the package would go to low-income people and others struggling in the economic downturn.

Millions of Americans receiving unemployment benefits would see a $25 increase in their weekly checks, up from the average benefit of $200.

Unemployment benefits would last 46 weeks under the deal, up from 26 weeks. Some people in high-unemployment states, including California, could receive benefits for 59 weeks.

People who lose a job would receive help in retaining their employer-sponsored health insurance.

Under current COBRA law, jobless workers can keep their insurance if they pay the full cost of the premium, which can exceed $1,000 a month for a family.

Under the stimulus bill, the federal government would pay 60% of that premium for nine months. Individuals who earned more than $125,000 a year and couples with incomes greater than $250,000 would not be eligible.

Those eligible for food stamps would see a 13.6% boost in what they receive.

The compromise has benefits for other people who receive government income: Disabled veterans and millions of other low-income and elderly people who rely on Supplemental Security Income would get one extra check for $250.

Other programs

More indirectly, millions of the nation's poorest residents would get help as states use billions of dollars in new federal aid to maintain Medicaid, special education and Head Start programs.

State and local government employees, many of whom are facing layoffs as states slash budgets, may get to keep their jobs.

Doctors, nurses and hospitals that often wait months for the government to pick up the tab for Medicaid patients could see some relief.

[Deep13]

1. Sounds good.

:thumbsup:

[Mojambo]

2. Agreed. Wish it was twice the size though.

Good start.

[Deep13]

6. Yup. We'll need more eventually. nt

[Psephos]

3. Here's who won't

Future taxpayers who have to pay the credit card we're putting this on. I.e., your kids. Fly now, let the suckers pay later. They will be hamstrung by the interest payments, horrified by the principal payments, and unable to enjoy their own prosperity, because it will have been foreclosed upon.

Nothing motivated me more to see Dems running the government than the promises of pay-go and fiscal sanity after what we saw from the pugs. Instead, we've got the single largest deficit spending spree ever, by any country, in all of history.

[babylonsister]

5. So, what would have been a better plan? Do you agree something

had to be done? Would tax cuts by themselves have worked, even though it's been proven they don't?
I'm really curious if you have/had a better idea.

[Psephos]

12. I do

1. Transparency for Treasury's secret $2 trillion asset guarantees (or is it $4 trillion or $6 trillion?....). It defies belief that Geithner could stand there with a straight face and say he can't show anyone where the money is actually going.

2. Slash the porkfest stimulus bill of anything that isn't actually a direct economic stimulus. That would at least cut it in half. Put a sunset on all funds not spent by Jan 1, 2010. If this lardbarge fails to deliver the economic returns (i.e., 4 million jobs, positive GDP growth, restoration of credit flows) you can count on dramatic Dem losses in coming elections. I can't believe Dem leadership is willing to roll the dice on something the Congressional Budget Office flatly states will not stimulate the economy, and most likely, will harm it.

3. Force an accurate audit of the assets on bank balance sheets. Take the pain now. Learn from what happened in Japan in the 90s. Kill the zombies.

4. Cut the payroll tax, and let the people who actually earn the money spend the money. That's astronomically more efficient than letting the pork kings slurp it up and then spit it back out to the delight of special interests and lobbyists.

5. Use true Keynesian demand stimulation/re-inflation in future efforts. There is nothing Keynesian about the current stimulus bill. Quite the opposite.

Take a look at this P.O.S. broken out by line. Then tell me you can sleep at night.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pV-c6t5fOVmNorqMpHvnCMw

[babylonsister]

17. Thank you for sharing all this.

I am woefully uneducated about economics, so every little bit helps.

I wonder if any of these solutions were considered and discarded because of the piss-off factor they'd surely invite.

And I can sleep at night because I'm an uneducated peon no one will or should listen to. I have to hope and trust they know what they're doing and will modify as they go when the situation warrants. But you're not making it easy!

[Psephos]

22. Thank you - for something else

Stimulating a civil discussion, and responding with sincerity. :toast:

No one has all the answers, especially me. Obviously, I have my concerns. We're both "peons," as you put it...but we're the peons who fund the system. The pols are the ones who spend what we give them. From my point of view, that makes the peons the most important part of the whole system. I don't shy away from strongly requesting that the spenders act from principles of good stewardship, rather than from political self-interest. Good stewardship first and foremost requires us not to waste what we have. Second, it requires balancing what goes out with what comes in. It's immoral to borrow so much money that it requires twelve zeroes after the one to add up the amount.

1,000,000,000,000 dollars

Divide that by 300,000,000 people in America. That's $3,300 of debt per head, or about $14,000 per nuclear family. For this ONE BILL ALONE (let alone all the other deficit spending in this year's budget). That money will have to be paid back...plus interest that accumulates every year, year after year.

Or think of like this: There are about 11 million unemployed people in the US currently (according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics). You could cancel the stimulus bill and hand every one of them a check for nearly $100,000. What kind of stimulation would that produce? Eleven million people with a hundred grand in their pocket?

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

The mind wobbles.

[Coyote_Bandit]

4. The long-term unemployed?

Doesn't do sh*t for them. At least not directly.

[babylonsister]

7. If they have no money, food stamps might help, as might

retaining their old health isurance plan. I'm working off the cuff here, but those sound like two immediate things that could help.

[Donnachaidh]

9. unemployment benefits do NOT cover cobra and rent.

FACT.

And many of those long-term unemployed usually aren't POOR ENOUGH to get food stamps, etc. Usually the dollar differences are not that big, but local governments don't care about that.

Those long-term unemployed get to SELL their possessions to stay in their homes. And when those are gone, they get to live in their cars. But of course, when that happens they effectively are *disappeared* as far as government help goes.

Banks get billions and people doing well enough get tax breaks and pell grants. Working class gets $25 bucks a week.

HOPE. Tell me again what that was supposed to be? :sarcasm:

[babylonsister]

13. So keep wallowing; you do it so well. I'm trying to find a silver

lining but you are not trying anything. Listen to yourself.

[Coyote_Bandit]

10. Most long-term unemployed

no longer have COBRA. How can you extend coverage you no longer have?

And food stamps? Perhaps that will help a few. But it does mean that those folks will first have to lose their homes and savings in order to qualify. Which means they will get f*cked more than the saps with foreclosed homes who clearly overextended themselves (yeah, I know that's not true in every foreclosure case).

I really do not believe there will be any direct assistance forthcoming for the long-term unemployed. Those folks are SOL.

[babylonsister]

14. You can't get food stamps unless you're flat out destitute? I

really don't know.

[Blaze Diem]

16. Ya and you need a Street address & living in your car doesn't qualify.

You can't be living with other family/friends unless they hand over their monthly wage summary, and vow that you only use food stamps for yourself, and the loops to jump through are there to protect from fraud, I understand, but its easier for a Bank CEO to collect a multi-million $$$ parachute than it is for a family living out of their car to get food.

I want to hear something addressed as to these American Citizens.
THIS should be the priority at the moment from our Congress and until I hear it I will look with extreme skepticism and doubt that much will change as to policy of our newly elected US Govt.

I'm absolutely Fed Up.

[babylonsister]

18. Thanks, and wow. The system defeats the people before

they even have a glimmer that they might need help. Very disheartening.

[Coyote_Bandit]

19. The resource limits here are

$2000 per household or $3000 per household if older than 60 or disabled. If you have more resources than that you do not qualify. And my understanding is that includes home equity.

Also you do not qualify if you are receiving unemployment compensation.

So, if you happen to be a long-term unemployed person who has worked for awhile and built home equity and then find yourself laid off you cannot get food stamps while collecting unemployment. And after the unemployment runs out you will not qualify for food stamps until you exhaust most everything except some personal property.

[Blaze Diem]

20. That is true. Exactly how it is.

It is an absolute shame on our USA that this bill was allowed to be chopped apart and ended up abandoning, but for a meager pittance, those whose hope for their own recovery or mere existance seems even farther away.
Words of working 'across the aisle' and being a bipartisan government is another way of saying to this part of American society that they don't matter.
But gee thanks for your vote.

[Coyote_Bandit]

23. This stimulus bill

isn't without a few redeeming qualities. But it is mostly a waste of limited resources which is designed to make some folks feel better because they think something is being done to resolve the real issues.

Even with this stimulus bill, big business is not going to create enough jobs to replace those which have been lost. At least not anytime soon. Losts of folks are gping to have to figure out a way to earn some income without traditional employment. Resources would have been better utilized for SBA loans and Medicare for small business employees and their families.

[Blaze Diem]

24. Absolutely. And effin SLAM that door shut immediately to the Companies who continue

to profit from outsourced US jobs.
Tax them, or whatever it takes.

The middle class has always kept this country's money flow going. Not the poor & not the wealthy.
Once the middle class was 'disappeared' what kind of rocket scientist did it take to read the economic writing on the wall.
Fuck NAFTA, CAFTA, & Free Trade for toxic products.

I'm watching for some sign that our Govt. understands that revival of the middle class and moving the lowest up a notch will stablize the flow of money back into the system.

Problem is, millions are in such dire straits at the moment, there isn't enough in this Big Fat Bill to save them.
S O L

[Donnachaidh]

8. twenty five bucks a week

:wow: :sarcasm:

[Blaze Diem]

15. No Shit. $25 buys a tank of gas so they can look for a job that will be

part time, low wage, or with a company that will close its doors, or outsource in the future.
Obama needs to get his shit together and keep his promise to those who stood in freezing temps at his inauguration, and to those who stood for hours & hours to vote him into office.
I see there is some progress being made and his time in office is brief, still I have seen more sign with the dismantling of this Bill itself that tells me that the people who have run the country into the ground with Bush policies that favor big business & privilege STILL hold the power to shove more of the same down our throats.

Take a f*ckin solid stand in our favor President Obama. Our lives and faith in a new government are being compromised and lost quickly on the 'across the aisle' bull shit.

Corporate Parachutes and Comfortably Wealthy - 1
America's Increasing New Poor - Big Fat Zero.

---------------
What good is a damn tax cut when you can't earn a wage?
What good is encouraging tax breaks for new home or 'green' auto buyers when your home & car have been repoed and your now shitty credit won't get you in the door to a bank to ask for another loan?

People Need to Work Now. Not a 3-5 year phase in plan.

Did our Government FORGET since the election, who stood in great numbers for CHANGE?

This Bill should have been about NOTHING ELSE but those who need help most immediately.

My Rant
Blaze

[graywarrior]

11. Yay! I'm going to college!

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

[Blaze Diem]

21. K & R Yes some of this helps a lot. But very disheartened by what was cut.

Appreciate this post.

[Jack_DeLeon]

25. I'm only going to be getting $13 dollars extra a paycheck...very stimunating...

:eyes:

I pay taxes so my "tax break" will give me an extra $13 a paycheck.

But wait, when I do my taxes at the end of the year I will end up owing no taxes so I should get it all back anyways, so thats a wash.

Gee maybe if I worked less the government would give me more money. :eyes: