Economic Stimulus—Obama Jobs Bill

October 2011...Since the economy began to falter in 2007, Congress has passed what amounts to three stimulus bills—a bipartisan $158 billion package of tax cuts signed by George W. Bush (just  after he learned to write his name), in early 2008, a $787 billion bill pushed by President Obama as he took office in 2009 in the wake of the financial system’s collapse and a tax cut and unemployment fund extension agreement reached by President Obama and Congressional Republicans in December 2010.

While Republicans have derided the 2009 stimulus as a failure, the consensus among economists has been that it helped stave off deeper job losses and supported a modest recovery.

Obama Jobs Bill — 2011
Once Republicans took control of the House after their big midterm victories, the debate in Washington focused on spending cuts, not stimulus. But with economic growth stalling in the late summer of 2011, unemployment still stubbornly high and the risk of a “double dip’' recession rising, President Obama went before Congress in September to push for a $447 billion package of tax cuts and new government spending.

The centerpiece of the bill, known as the American Jobs Act, is an extension and expansion of the cut in payroll taxes, worth $240 billion, under which the tax paid by employees would be cut in half through 2012. Smaller businesses would also get a cut in their payroll taxes, as well as a tax holiday for hiring new employees. The plan also provides $140 billion for modernizing schools and repairing roads and bridges,  spending that the President portrayed as critical to maintaining America’s competitiveness.