U.S Stimulus Package

Finally a balanced version of stimulus package going to approved by lawmakers from both the houses. The final version is very balance, 35% in forms of tax cut and remaining 65% towards spending, mainly construction. My first wish list, redo all Chicago area roads, too many pot holes, too large also. The hope is as soon as this Stimulus becomes law, Caterpillar Inc would rescind most of 22,000 layoff which announced recently. This will be applying to all over country, some companies want to rehire some layoff people as soon as this becomes law, most of the spending towards rebuilding and most of 3.6 Million layoffs were from construction, manufacturing industry. They can easily find a job from this spending. First time home buyers are getting almost 15% tax credit, definitely it is going to help real estate also. Here is a chart of job losses from this recession, just compare with previous one, it is mother of all recession so far, and 3-4 months ago it looked like another 2001 recession, but still they are close. This is why we need a stimulus as soon as possible.

 Source : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/06/job-loss-chart-what-36-mi_n_164828.html

One of my personal wish list also included in this stimulus, that is, digitalize all medical records to reduce paper work. When i started my career in U.S at Silicon Valley the start up Neoforma had an ambitious goal to support healthcare industry to reduce paperwork. So we know how much paper work involved in health care industry. We successfully helped healthcare industry from fax based ordering system to online that was a revolution at that time. I’m glad that i found an excellent article from 2001 archive CNN Money regarding this matter.

The stimulus package is huge and massive in size, i wonder how come Mr. Obama’s team gets assembled this much detailed package very soon and introduced in both the chambers. The green initiatives are great and it increases awareness of saving energy all over country and even world. But we need an innovation based projects also, which are lacking here, anyway innovation always come from private sector not necessary from government.

Here are highlights of this massive Stimulus package, please note it is not from final version.

  • $32 billion Funding for "smart electricity grid" to reduce waste
  • $20 billion  Renewable energy tax cuts and a tax credit for research and development on energy-related work, and a multiyear extension of renewable energy production tax credit

Smart electricity grid is much needed infrastructure change now. Energy related work is definitely helps to lower oil consumptions. 

  • $6 billion High-speed Internet access for rural and underserved areas.

Good for Web 2.0 startups.

  • $32 billion Transportation projects
  • $31 billion  Construction and repair of federal buildings and other public infrastructure
  • $19 billion Water projects
  • $10 billion Rail and mass transit projects

 I think we need more rail and mass transit projects. 

Source:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090211/ap_on_go_co/congress_stimulus

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2001/11/19/316359/index.htm

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123202946622485595.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/06/job-loss-chart-what-36-mi_n_164828.html

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