by Tricia Dove
The economy has fallen into a crisis. However Barack Obama and Joe Biden have created a four-part rescue plan for the middle classes that will address the economy’s rapidly growing problems.
“I’m concerned that the country is going into huge debt, including the recent bailout. Our budget deficits are huge and are only growing. Some of the Bush tax cuts, namely for the wealthy, are expiring and should. The biggest issue is those on the middle class,” said Mayor John Rink of Barrington, NJ.
This four-part plan consists of:
1) Immediate Action to Create Good Jobs in America
2) Immediate Relief for Struggling Families
3) Direct, Immediate, Assistance for Homeowners, Not a Bailout for Irresponsible Mortgage Leaders
4) A Rapid, Aggressive Response to Our Financial Crisis, Using all the Tools We Have.
According to Obama’s main Web site the economy has lost 760,000 jobs this year, and some forecasters expect the unemployment rate to exceed 8 percent by the end of next year.
The first part of Obama and Biden’s rescue plan has different main parts.
First there will be a new American jobs tax credit. Any company in the United States that adds jobs will be provided a temporary tax credit. This means that during 2009 and 2010 each business will receive a $3,000 tax credit for each additional full-time job they hire an employee for. This tax credit will benefit all businesses even the ones that are struggling to make profit.
Second it says the United States can save 1 million jobs through immediate investments to rebuild America’s roads, bridges and schools. Obama has an emergency plan where $25 million would be immediately available in a Jobs and Growth Fund to ensure projects that would rebuild and reconstruct schools.
They will also raise the small business incentive by raising the investment expense limit to $250,000 through the end of 2009. This will then give small businesses the incentive to make more investments and create more jobs. Obama also wants to eliminate the capital gains taxes on investments made in small and start-up businesses. Obama wants to cut the taxes for small businesses that create jobs but are struggling during these times.
Obama and Biden also want to address the credit facing small businesses and to address the credit crunch that is threatening small businesses. According to his plan he intends to do this is in two parts:
1) A nationwide emergency leading facility for small businesses that could be run through the Small Business Administration’s Disaster Loan Program, which helped thousands of businesses in the wake of 9/11 and
2) Temporarily eliminating fees on the SBA’s 7(a) and 504 loan guarantee programs for small businesses, to help increase private lending for small businesses.
The second part of the four-part plan aims to have immediate relief for struggling families. Two of the solutions Obama and Biden came up with are:
1) A tax cut for 95 percent of workers and their families plus seniors. Obama wants to propose a permanent tax break in giving $1,000 to families and $500 to workers. He would also extend these tax cut to seniors who make less then $50,000 a year while beginning to eliminate taxes for seniors completely. With the Obama-Biden plan 27 million seniors will no longer need to file a tax return.
2) Extending unemployment insurance benefits and temporarily suspending taxes on those benefits. Obama believes that Congress should immediately extend unemployment by 13 weeks and he also feels that the taxes on unemployment insurance benefits should be temporarily suspended.
As for direct, immediate assistance for homeowners, Obama wants:
1) A 90-day foreclosure moratorium for homeowners who are acting in good faith. This will give the homeowner and the mortgage company more of a chance to work something out with one another.
2) Universal mortgage tax credit for homeowners. Obama believes that the United States should immediately establish a 10 percent refundable tax credit on interest that is paid to a mortgage. This credit will then help offset the cost of mortgage payments for at the minimum of 10 million struggling middle class families.
To help with work and family balance, Obama and Biden will extend the Family and Medical Leave Act. Instead of applying that law only to companies with 50 or more employees, they want to apply it to companies with 25 or more employees.
“The families are who are struggling the most, people getting houses foreclosed on. It is a very rough time in our economy; however, I feel that if some of all of what Obama and Biden are proposing goes to work then we might actually have a fighting chance,” said Councilman Kirk Popiolek of Barrington, NJ.
Obama and Biden also want to encourage states to adopt paid leave. Obama will initiate a strategy that will empower all 50 states to adopt paid leave systems. They will then provide the states with a $1.5 billion fund to assist with the startup costs.
“I believe that for whoever becomes president there is much work to be done when coming into office. Hopefully this plan is foolproof and we can get started picking ourselves back up off from the ground,” said Mayor Rink.
—
Obama and Biden on providing middle class Americans tax relief:
• Simplify tax filing for middle class Americans. Obama and Biden will propose to ensure that the IRS uses the information they already have from banks and employers to give taxpayers a way to pre-file tax forms to only have to verify, sign and then return. Experts have said that Obama and Biden will save taxpayers an estimated 200 million total hours of work and up to $2 billion in tax prepaper fees.
• Enact a windfall profits tax to provide a $1,000 emergency energy rebate to American families. This relief would only be a start to the long-term plan to provide middle class families with a minimum of $1,000 in permanent tax relief.
1 Comment
November 7, 2008 at 1:32 pm
[...] To check out Tricia Dove’s election preview story click on this link here. [...]