Rightfully yours

President Barack Obama is riding full speed into the financial storm of our economy, moving to keep his ambitious campaign promises and clear the dark clouds of the financial system, all at once.  He is moving quickly, well aware that his inaugural popularity is at its peak.

His two-year $820 billion economic recovery blueprint includes plans for computerized medical records, a national electricity grid to distribute renewable energy, lower taxes for everyone under his ‘affluent’ income line, modernized schools, and education initiatives.  The House bill includes roughly $550 billion in domestic spending and about $275 billion in tax cuts.

The goal is to advance the policies the president laid out in his campaign, including education improvement, health care cost reductions, moves toward energy independence and aid to low and middle income workers.

When passed, the legislation will require all business funding recipients to publish a plan for using the funds, along with purpose, cost, rationale, net job creation, and contact information about the plan to a new website Recovery.gov so that the public can review and comment.

About $275 billion is designated for tax cuts sent directly to the states to protect the jobs of firefighters, local government employees and public health workers as well as tax credits for education and first time homebuyers.

Job-creating road and bridge funds ($90 billion) will favor repairs to existing structures rather than funding new ones.  Repair jobs can be initialized faster, quickly injecting payroll spending into the economy, as well as curtailing urban sprawl leading to increased fuel consumption.

There will also be jobs created for clean energy development ($58 billion), a national electric grid, and funds to weatherize homes and public buildings.  It is hoped the recovery plan will spark energy efficient thinking and building as well as renewable energy technologies.

There is close to $142 billion allocated for education to protect the jobs of teachers as well as attempt to stop the “dropout crisis” and provide an easier path for many American youth to become productive taxpayers.  Studies have shown that cutting the dropout rates in half would pay back $9 for each $1 invested, representing new tax revenues and savings in welfare and incarcerations.

Funding will also go toward expanding wiring providers and implementing universal broadband service to extend Internet service to rural areas.  Internet access will allow companies to hire remote workers to work at home, saving on office expenses as well as allow individuals the opportunity to run small businesses on the Internet.  It will also be a vehicle for coordinating expanded health care records.  It is estimated that for each $1 invested in this area will return about $10 in increased productivity to the economy.

Health care investments ($111 billion) to the states to expand Medicaid will result in cost reductions connected to the medical industry’s expanded use of information technology.  The expanded use of technology to coordinate medical records ($20 billion) will minimize duplication, re-entering the same data, and “doctor shopping” for multiple issues of the same prescriptions.  On the negative side, this technology expansion has people concerned over privacy on a national network, but tight encryption methods are readily available.

President Obama’s election mandate, along with a party majority in Congress, presents him with an opportunity to spend and cut taxes more than any president in our history, with the possible exception of Franklin D. Roosevelt in the Great Depression. 

To highlight the momentum of the recovery proposal, we can compare it to the $16 billion stimulus Bill Clinton asked the Democratic-controlled Congress for in 1993 when he had just come into office, and they turned him down.

So far, this Congress has only cut out a $3,000 tax credit for businesses for each new hire.

The size of this package is annually nearly half as much as the total federal annual discretionary spending budget with the exception of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. 

The package is expected to be on the president’s desk by February 13, a scant three weeks after he took office.

He soon expects to sign legislation against gender pay discrimination (signed 1/29/2009) and for low-income child health care.  He has already issued an executive order removing the ban on federal abortion funding and expects to soon revive federal financing for embryonic stem-cell research.

Ed.Note: The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Play Act of 2009 was signed into law after passing both houses almost strictly along party lines.  The Republicans are acting like spoiled brats, voting against any Democratic legislation, no matter how it advances the causes of right and good for the country.  This was a vote by Republicans against Democrats, but it comes across as a vote against women and minority equality. 
I am ashamed of the Republican party.

President Obama will spend a lot of time himself lobbying for the passage of this bill.  He wants to go to the American people and report that this is a package passed by both parties in Congress.  However, Republican ‘nay Sayers’ claim this package will not work, so they are voting not to do anything with regard to government spending and have no positive suggestions of their own, except tax cuts.  The Republican approach is to offer tax cuts, and let the social economy recover and advance at a natural pace, a process that could take decades.

The package passed the both the House Appropriations committee and the committee on Ways and Means strictly along party lines and it is likely the bill will pass Congress along party lines as well.  This is another example of one Party driving while the other becomes a dragging anchor.

In addition to the $820 billion stimulus package, better known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment plan of 2009, the president will oversee the distribution of the second half of the $700 billion TARP program.  He has said he will have a strong message for bankers about sitting on any taxpayer bailout money, reminding them of their commitment to restart credit to both business and individual and work with struggling homeowners to avoid foreclosure.