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Do ARITHMETIC!!!! Divide the $800 billion by 2 million jobs and it costs $400,000 per job. If it creates 4 million jobs, it costs $200,000 per job created. Once we divide the cost by benefit projected we reveal that the bill proposed is primarily a BIG TAX GIVEAWAY in the form of relaxation of the LOSS CARRYOVER rule so that more prior losses can be deduction from the taxable income of corporations. We are taking $300 billion in such tax cuts. Only a small part of the package is for jobs.

Susan,
Your on the right track. I would return all the tax money paid in 2008 by people who were laid off in 2008-2009 and still unemployed on April 15 and stop withholding federal income tax at the end of this quarter for all who are still employed. Government needs to give incentives to business to expand basic manufacturing capabilities: clothing, house wares and other consumer good. The Finance, Insurance Real Estate “service economy” will prove to be a farce. It is also immoral for the “shell marketing companies” like so many companies that were manufacturers but now just order products from offshore vendors and market them here, to allow the use of what some would consider slave labor. Bring it back here and generate some real jobs, not just a bunch of phony paper pushing service and sales jobs any con-artist can do.

TAX LIBERATION DAY is in May for most people now. People want to give them another reason to collect more money from the working class? Hahaha, let the government spend your $1000; on what new computers from China so school children can learn? Interestingly, I can read write, spell and do trigonometry & calc. and I didn't have a computer in school. Did the lady who was upset that most jobs should be in the private sector know that the “New Deal” was an utter failure? The late 1930’s were worse than 3 years after 1929. WWII got the U.S. out of the depression; Private sector jobs & consumer spending, albeit with huge government contracts, but it was not with W.P.A. or Teach for America workers. Liberal credit and spending policy got the economy here, liberal solutions aren’t going to fix the underlying problem!

Just now, or the first time ever, I had to turn yr show off. I wish you had not invited the dour prof from Fairfax. I always want to hear both sides of an issue, and your dissenting callers were just fine, but this guy exudes general life negativity. Everything he says is dripping with no-can-do. Right up to where he tells you he's not going to the Obama speech at his university because his "university swill be a mess" security can't handle it, the traffic will be terrible. . . . . I bet he doesn't even get invited to dinner twice, so please don't torment us with this guy's depressing life view on your show again.

How much per person is this? By my back-of-the-envelope calculation, it's $2500 for every man, woman, and child in the country. If this were passed on directly to the people in the form of vouchers with expiration dates that must be spent in the US, I suspect it would be a better, faster stimulus than filtering it through the corrupt government and private sector that will skim off much of the proposed money with no benefit to the economy. If you need evidence, just look at what has happened to the $trillion given to the banks, AIG, etc. which just lined their pockets.

Your guest just stated that the tax relief will be in the form of reduced withholding. First, that doesn't benefit those who are presently unemployed. Second, when you spread the reduced withholding over 26 pay periods, it comes out to only $36.50 per pay check. How would that stimulate spending?!?

Haha,
That Mississippi bridge was repaired by a private contractor NOT the government! Now who is usually responsible for the inspection of bridges? ...THE GOVERNMENT! WHAT HAPPENED?

Energy is the most important issue worldwide
Regardless of current oil prices, energy will be key on every global issue and investing on Suistainable Resources (Research, Production, Implementation) will make the USA a global leader once again. Let's hope we go in that direction.

The $1,000 tax cut/rebate is a waste of money. Our household, like most I suspect, will put it directly toward 1 month's mortgage payment or credit card debt -- which just goes straight to a bank and not to any sort of money circulation.

I'm sick of politicians and Wall Street people (and Obama just now) blaming this crisis on the American people. Not everyone borrowed money against their house just to buy ipods. This was corporate fraud on a massive scale encouraged by the Government when they should have been policing it.

Why is it always buy buy buy. Just go buy things that's how the economy will be fixed? That is only a band aid. People, when you get your stimulus money pay off your debt! So these idiots won't own you. The notion that this monumental problem will be solved just by buying more and more stuff is ridiculous. When does it end when do our resources become so exhausted that there is nothing left to buy. The economy cannot just keep growing forever and ever. It's just not possible. We would eventually use everything up.

I am suspicious of the the need for so much spending and doubt that it will do much to reverse the underlying issues that led to the economic crisis. The so called stimulus seems to be aimed at temporary, project based employment. What needs to be done is to curb outsourcing - the export of jobs and national wealth under the guise of free trade - and bring the jobs back. If our economy doesn't return to creating real wealth with real production of goods the stimulus will change nothing.

According to Barney Frank's recent interview on Good Morning America- the other half of the bailout is being held until the new administration comes in. However, nary a voice was heard when the banks were handed the 1st half of the bailout money. Why is there such a hullabaloo now when this is to help consumers who have lost jobs, lost houses and are barely making it?

a lot of FDR's New Deal was found to be unconstitutional. Doesn't the push for private sector jobs open this door for the Obama administration once the government attempts to control wages, benefits, etc?

While I'm against bailouts on principal, there are times when intervention is unavoidable. That said, most of these proposals are misguided at best, dangerous at worse. The deficits these will cause are unbearable. A $300 million tax cut is unaffordable. How are we going to pay for these programs with out any income? It is mathematically proven (and politically) that tax cuts do not raise revenues. It does not create more tax payers. England tried this in 1976, and they defaulted on a loan to the US, and had to have the IMF bail them out. The run on sterling was so severe it literally bankrupted the country.

Throwing money after bad is not the answer. The problem is, these companies need to restructure. Just giving them more money will make the problem worse. More debt, no change. Look at British Leyland Auto in britain in 1979. It was a disaster after billions and billions of pounds up in smoke and a worse off economy.

The combined worth of the 400 wealthiest Americans is over 1 trillion dollars. There's a good chunk of the stimulus -- the people who benefited at our expense for the past 25 years.

As for the track record of "stimulus" -- it isn't good. The New Deal kept people alive, but it _did not_ end the Depression.

And the foundation of the American economy is _worse_ than in 1932 or 33. We've had three decades of Republicans and Democrats gutting _all_ of the things that make for a well-formed economy -- infrastructure, education, pensions, wages, healtcare, _water_, _food!

The Reaganite campaign to villify government may well have destroyed the United States. Bush did his best to carry the Reaganism to its pathetic illogical fanatical extreme. (And Clinton wasn't much better.)

I'm frankly disappointed. The sppech was too timid and relies on failed rostrums of the past, such as small reductions in taxes. Why should he expect that a $1,000 tax rebate or reduction will stimulate the conomy any more than the rebate earlier this year?

He was too nonspecific about the energy plan. Al Gore and Bill Clinton stated in a lecture series last Spring that construction of solar and/or wind farms in the southwest and northern plains could supply ALL the electricity needs of the country, but that the cost of connecting to the grid was considered too high, but the sums stated are well within the amounts being discussed here. That would be a bold plan.

In addition, instead of tax relief for business, a plan that would remove the obligation for health care from employers would do much more for business than tax reductions, would enable our businesses to better compete in the global marketpolace by levelling the playing field and would result in greater expansion by reducing the cost of domestic products.

Asking congress to work weekends is not realistic. Congress needs that time to raise money for their campaigns. We NEED to confront campaign financing.

Good luck mr. Prez Elect Obama!
Your proposals will succeed in a measure directly proportional to the willingness of each of us, including every member of Congress, local politician, lobbyist, bureaucrat and government minion to act in accordance with the greater good, not our personal need and greed.
Can we really expect the Country to have a 180 degrees change of attitude?

I think Obama is right in looking for saving through mining for efficiencies. Smart Grid, digitizing medical records, (hopefully mass transit). All good ideas.
Thomas Friedman talks about a lot of these Ideas in "Hot, Flat and Crowded" and "The World is Flat" If only he would push a carbon Tax.
The hardest thing I think will be making Americans start to invest in the commons and understand our "Way of Life" is collectively harmful and unsustainable.

This is "The moment" we will either raise to the occasion or totally collapse into squabbling and the decline of our republic.

Is the current President doing anything on either issue?

i do not understand how this is an economic stimulus. it just seems to be more government spending.

how about the government just give me about 20,000 so i can pay off my debt that i will have more money to spend. thats my selfish plan.

I'm in favor of a greater stimulus package. Why all this fuss around an 800 billion dollar package when we just spent 700 billion dollars -- a handout to banks! -- with little discussion and little result. This is an emergency and needs emergency measures -- thoughful, considered measures, monitored by the White House, not handed out willy nilly by Congress. But if $700 billion was so quickly given away, why so much made about $800 to save the economy?

Haven't we proven that just throwing money doesn't work? The banks are sitting on hundreds of billions while lending nothing and continuing to pay out huge bonuses to the chinless aristocrats who caused this debacle, while the (relatively) modest bailout to the auto industry cracks down on the workers to bring labor in line with third world wages and benefits. We should not be terrorized again into giving up rational decision-making.

Bush has like more than a week in office. WHERE IS HE DURING THIS CRISIS?

If I had a week or two as president I sure wouldn't be letting anybody step in and talk on my behalf.

(Plus it scares me when I don't see Bush or Cheney.)

Since when has more computers=better education?

Is the current president doing anything on either issue?

These proposals are inevitable measures that should have been taken long before this economic crises, especially when the economy was booming. It’s unfortunate we choose to ignore the necessities when times are good and have to pay for it when times are bad.

Not that we don't need it if there really is one, but I certainly hope he isn't planning on trotting out that "God Bless Merica" thingie at the end of every speech, ugh. The current president pretty much played that one out.

that is exactly what i was going to say shaun, i guess he picks and chooses on where the one president pertains too

Interesting that Obama is making such a speech when he claims there is only "one president" at a time.

I guess this refers to foreign policy and not domestic affairs. There's only "one president" when it comes to the Israel-Palestine issue, but apparently two presidents when it comes to the global economic crisis...