"Hi! Yes. Mr/Mrs Taxpayer, can I have your bank account number?"

First, the purpose of this entry is to convey my opinion and pass along information that I have come across in my research. If, after reading this entry, you agree with the information and opinion, great! If not, I respect your opinion (I do!) and your right to disagree with me. Please post your comment and let's start a discussion with the group. We all need to remember this is what the populous voted for, if they realized it or not.

So, President Obama and the House Democrats have presented their plan on how to stimulate the economy. Remember, this is an economic package from a country built on the idea of capitalism. The $800B+ package titled “The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act”, as passed by the House, would be the single largest transfer of money in history. I hope everyone has paid off their Christmas/Hanukkah bills, because every one of us are about to cough over thousands of dollars to the government. Let's take a look at some of the ways the House Democrats want to stimulate the economy; $75M in smoking cessation programs, $335M in STD prevention, $150M to the Smithsonian Institute, $650M in digital TV converter coupons, $50M to the National Endowment for the Arts, $200M on improvements to the National Mall (since removed from the bill), $1B in nutrition programs, $600M to pay for a new fleet of federal vehicles, $142B in education spending, refundable tax credits for people who don't pay taxes. Understanding that these are small percentages of the total bill, will the rest of the money help get us out of the recession? Even the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) says that only 52% of the $800B can be spent before the end of 2010. Praying that we will be recovering from the recession later this year or in 2010 as most economists predict, shouldn't the bill be for $425B ($819B * 52%)?

How does giving people coupons to buy a digital TV converter jump start the economy Besides, we've been told for years that TV was switching to digital signals and the government set aside hundreds of millions in coupons to promote the switch. If people didn't request a coupon before they ran out, tough! Watching TV is not a right where the government needs to pay for everyone's converter boxes...How will the $142B in educational funding stimulate the economy? Before you educators jump down my throat, I agree with some of the spending. The education system is broken and we need to fix it. $14B of the $142B is for new school construction and modernization. This will help reduce student to teacher ratios and give students and teachers proper environments to learn and teach. Also, there is $2.6B to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) funding to train new teachers and support research & development to improve math and science instruction. This is desperately needed as our children are light years behind other developed countries. This is an economic stimulus package not an education bill...$335M in STD prevention? Enough said...$600M for a fleet of cars purchased from the auto industry. These are the same companies the government recently “purchased” all of the built but unsold cars and agreed to let the companies “re-sell” the cars and pay the government back. I ask you this, if we already paid for the cars, why do we need to “re-buy” them? Why can't we just take the cars we already purchased?

Democrats also initially included a provision to match state spending on contraceptive services offered by Medicaid with $9 in federal funds for every $1 spent by the state. House Minority Leader John Boehner objected, “How you can spend hundreds of millions of dollars on contraceptives? How does that stimulate the economy?” Here is the response given by Speaker Nancy Pelosi on ABC's “This Week with George Stephanopoulos”, “Family planning services reduce cost...One of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.” Let me get this straight, fewer children equals a better economy. Doesn't anyone else find this scary?

During President Obama's campaign, he promised to end the “politics of division” and unite Washington. After winning the presidency with one of the largest margins in our nation's history, Barack Obama had built enough political capital to gather support from the Republicans for this historic package. But, the President did not use any of this capital and delegated that responsibility to Speaker Pelosi. Taking her lead, House Democrats ignored all GOP suggestions while adding the billions of dollars of spending to countless special interest groups. As a result, every Republican and 11 Democrats voted against the bill. The President needed to do more than host a cocktail party for Republicans and invite them to the White House Super Bowl party. BUT, is this what he wanted? By passing the buck to Pelosi, he will be able to blame the House Democrats when the bill does not work and sell another crock of “overcoming political partisanship” to the public. I have to give it to him, he is a good salesman!

But Sean/Choppy, the Republicans are simply voting against the bill and not providing alternative solutions! You're wrong. On 1/23 House Republicans, led by Boehner and Minority Whip Eric Cantor, presented an Econonic Recovery Plan to President Obama and Democratic Leaders. This is the same meeting when President Obama exclaimed, “I won!” to the Republicans arguing against the Democrats' bill. The plan has concrete ideas on how to get us out of this mess.

Instead of a refundable tax credit based on payroll taxes, the Republicans plan calls for the reduction of the bottom two individual tax rates from 15% and 10% to 10% and 5%. According to The Office of the Republican Whip, this would represent and average benefit to every taxpaying American of $500 in tax relief in the drop from 10% to 5% and $1,200 from 15% to 10%. A married couple filing jointly could save up to $3,200 a year in taxes.

The Republican plan also proposes to allow small businesses (< 500 employees) to take a tax deduction equal to 20% of their income. “Here we go again, Sean. Tax cuts...Nothing new!” Well, let's look at a real-life scenario. According to the Heritage Foundation, there are 498,606 small businesses with 500 or fewer employees in Minnesota. The Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy reports they represent 98% of the states' employers and accounts for 78% of the states' net new jobs in 2004 and 2005. It is the same story across our great country. We need to lower the tax burden on our nations' small businesses.

The legislation also includes a home-buyers credit of $7,500 for buyers who can put at least 5% down. This is intended to be an incentive to get potential buyers off the sideline and help turn around the real estate market.

Finally, the bill would make unemployment benefits tax free. I didn't know the Federal Government imposes income taxes on unemployment. That's ridiculous!

Let's review the plan of the Party the liberal media says is in “Big Businesses'” back pocket. INDIVIDUAL tax rate decrease. SMALL BUSINESS tax relief. Home buyers' credit. TAX FREE benefits for the unemployed...And imagine, all along I was led to believe that Democrats were the Party for the American individual.

“See, the Republicans are racist! They are whipping minorities!”, Anonymous Uninformed Citizen Who Voted for Obama.