Last night President Obama unveiled his proposed economic stimulus plan to congress. He said the plan is designed to help give the economy a boost that is much needed by creating a plethora of jobs.
The bill is comprised of 253 billion dollars in tax cuts and 192 billion dollars in new spending. The total spending for this economic stimulus plan would be 447 billion dollars. Many analysts say the bill in its current form has no chance of passing through the house, which is controlled by the conservatives. The republicans are very skeptical about any bills that call for new spending.
On the tax cut portion of the bill President Obama wants to extend the tax break that United States citizens have on their first 106,000 dollars worth of wages. Normally the rate is at 6.2%, but as of now it is only 4.2%. Not only does he want to extend the tax break, but also bring the percentage down even more from 4.2% to 3.1%.
He also has business tax cuts in his stimulus plan. First he wants to lower the payroll tax businesses have to pay to 3.1%, and if the business either gives a current employee a raise or hires a new employee, they are exempt from payroll taxes all together.
Now that we have talked about the tax cuts, lets talk about Obama’s plan for spending. First off he wants to create an infrastructure bank. Initially the bank would cost the tax payers 10 billion dollars, but according to Obama’s plan it will be self sustained from interest off of loans.
Obama also asked for 50 billion dollars in immediately to help repair our nation’s roads.
He also asked for 5 billion dollars to help modernize some 30,000 public schools and community colleges.
The last thing major thing he wanted his economic stimulus package to do was extend unemployment benefits. Obama said 43% of the unemployed have been that way for 6 months. He believes it will help the economy if he extend our benefits to help those people.