Obama's Stimulus: A Jump-Start for His Long-Term Agenda?

[Thrill]

The $1 trillion question is: how much more, and for how long? As qualms about the debt take a back seat to worries about a depression, the scope of the stimulus plan has grown to include everything from expanding Pell grants for college students and health care for the unemployed to investments in renewable energies. Instead of temporary measures meant to prop up the sagging economy over just the next two years, much of what has been proposed so far looks like a laundry list of Obama campaign promises. If passed, Obama will get, in one fell swoop, a running start on large swathes of his long-term agenda, the ultimate cost of which no one yet knows.


So what, exactly, has been proposed in this short-term/long-term stimulus? Here are some areas where money spent now may continue to be spent well into the future:

• Education: On the table are funds to help special ed students, expanded Pell grants to college students and increased money for Head Start programs. All of these were Obama campaign promises that will require renewed funding in two years and will be difficult for Democrats to scale back.

• Health Care: A $100 billion package features money to expand health insurance for laid-off workers, known as Cobra, for longer periods of time and for those who did not have health insurance with their former employers, as well as funds to help state shortfalls on Medicaid. The remaining $20 billion is a "down payment" for one of Obama's campaign pledges: a $50 billion program to modernize the nation's medical records, most of which sit in filing cabinets instead of online. While the Medicaid grant to the states would be a one-time deal (one that the GOP would prefer to see as loans), the other initiatives would either require additional funding down the road or, as in the case of Cobra, would be hard to let lapse in two years' time.

• Tax Cuts: About $310 billion worth of tax cuts have been proposed. Many of these provisions are one-time measures allowing companies to write off 2008 and 2009 losses; letting small businesses write off expenditures up to $250,0000; and a one-year tax credit giving companies $3,000 for each new hire and employee retained. Obama has also suggested a $500 rebate for individuals and $1,000 for couples; even those who don't make enough to pay taxes would receive some kind of rebate for the taxes that are automatically deducted for Medicare and Social Security. Republicans have further suggested cutting the middle income tax rate from 25% to 15%, and businesses are pushing for money for companies, such as airlines and start-ups, that have not paid taxes in the last two years and don't qualify for rebates.

• Energy: Obama has proposed including the creation of a national energy grid to harness and distribute energy from renewable sources such as wind, solar and hydroelectricity. He would also double the funding for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, a program slashed by Bush that seeks to make U.S. manufacturing more efficient by using new technologies. These are two small pieces of the President-elect's massive $150 billion green jobs plan he touted on the campaign trail that is expected to come later this year or next.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1870321,00.html