How the stimulus bill affects you?

2 ANSWERS

1. Brett
   

   Here's an examination of how the economic stimulus plan will affect Americans.
   
   Taxes
   The recovery package has tax breaks for families that send a child to college, purchase a new car, buy a first home or make the one they own more energy efficient.
   
   Millions of workers can expect to see about $13 extra in their weekly paychecks, starting around June, from a new $400 tax credit to be doled out through the rest of the year. Couples would get up to $800. In 2010, the credit would be about $7.70 a week, if it is spread over the entire year.
   
   A $1,000 child tax credit would be extended to more low-income families that don't make enough money to pay income taxes, and poor families with three or more children will get an expanded earned income tax credit.
   
   Middle-income and wealthy taxpayers will be spared from paying the alternative minimum tax, which was designed 40 years ago to make sure wealthy taxpayers paid at least some tax but was never indexed for inflation. Congress fixes it each year, usually in the fall.
   
   Health insurance
   Many workers who lose their health insurance when they lose their jobs will find it cheaper to keep that coverage while they look for work.
   
   Right now, most people who work for medium or large employers can continue their coverage for 18 months under the COBRA program (named for the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act) when they lose their jobs. The coverage is expensive, often more than $1,000 a month, because the newly unemployed pay the share of premiums once covered by their employer as well as their own share from the old group plan.
   
   Under the stimulus package, the government will pick up 65% of the total cost of that premium for the first nine months.
   
   Infrastructure
   Highways repaved for the first time in decades. Century-old waterlines dug up and replaced with new pipes. Aging bridges, stressed under the weight of today's SUVs, reinforced with fresh steel and concrete.
   
   But the $90 billion is a mere down payment on what's needed to repair and improve the country's physical backbone. And not all economists agree it's an effective way to add jobs in the long term, or to stimulate the economy.
   
   Energy
   Homeowners looking to save energy, makers of solar panels and wind turbines, and companies hoping to bring the electric grid into the computer age all stand to reap major benefits.
   
   The package contains more than $42 billion in energy-related investments, from tax credits for homeowners to loan guarantees for renewable energy projects and direct government grants for makers of wind turbines and next-generation batteries.

   Report (0) (0)  |   12 years, 7 month(s) ago  

2. Brett
   

   National debt
   One thing about the president's $790 billion stimulus package is certain: It will jack up the federal debt.
   
   Whether or not it succeeds in producing jobs and taming the recession, tomorrow's taxpayers will end up footing the bill.
   
   Forecasters expect the 2009 deficit -- for the budget year that began Oct. 1, 2008 -- to hit $1.6 trillion, including new stimulus and bank-bailout spending. That's about three times last year's shortfall.
   
   The torrents of red ink are being fed by rising federal spending and falling tax revenues from hard-hit businesses and individuals.
   
   The national debt -- the sum of money owed by all levels of government -- stands at $10.7 trillion, or about $36,000 for every man, woman and child in the U.S.
   
   Interest payments alone on the national debt will near $500 billion this year. It's already the fourth-largest federal expenditure, after Medicare-Medicaid, Social Security and defense.

   Report (0) (0)  |   12 years, 7 month(s) ago