Talking Points Memo has a detailed summary of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the economic stimulus bill that is being proposed by the incoming Obama Administration. Here are the Social Security items:
This is money to be spent in the next nine months!- Social Security Administration Modernization: $400 million to replace the 30 year old Social Security Administration's National Computer Center to meet growing needs for processing retirement and disability claims and records storage.
- Social Security Administration Disability Backlog and Claims Processing: $500 million to help the Social Security Administration process a steep rise in disability and retirement claims, getting people their benefits faster, and preventing existing backlogs from getting worse. Within this total, $40 million will help SSI upgrade health information technology.
- Payments to Disabled and Elderly: $4.2 billion to help 7.5 million low-income disabled and elderly individuals with rising costs by providing an additional SSI payment in 2009 equal to the average monthly federal payment under the program (approximately $450 for an individual and $630 for a couple). This one-time payment will serve as an immediate economic stimulus as half of SSI recipients have no other form of income and the other half average outside income of less than $450 per month.
Update: Here is a link to the draft bill. The Social Security appropriations part is on page 205.
Democratic president,democraticly lead congress ans senate equals progress.
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Stimulating Our Way to Rock Bottom:
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Now government, like some mythical white knight, is going to ride in to save the day by blanketing the economy with dollars, hiring an army of new bureaucrats, creating make-work jobs, and sending everyone some form of a bailout check.
The results will be worsening economic woes until we learn our lesson. But instead Congress is behaving like drug addicts who must hit rock bottom before they are ready to face reality. They are playing foolish games with the economy now because they are thinking only of political expedience.
We are at an economic dead-end and those in power are in denial. The truth is, our economic problems are due to loose monetary policy, central economic planning, and the parasitic expenses of government. Unless we assess these problems honestly, we unfortunately have a long way to go until, like the junkie, we hit rock bottom.
Riiiiiiiight. Good to know that the disciples of Herbert Hoover are alive and well.
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By 1933, 89 percent of stock value had been wiped out, the economy had shrunk by one-third, thousands of banks had closed, a third of the money supply had vanished, and unemployment had reached 25 percent -- among heads of households. And in those days, there was no unemployment insurance, no Medicare, no Medicaid, no Social Security, no welfare.
FDR's answer: vast federal spending, tough new regulations on business and higher taxes -- like Herbert Hoover before him, only more so.
The Depression lasted until war orders from the Allies brought U.S. industry back to life. Before 1940, not once did unemployment fall below 14 percent. In May 1939, Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau testified:
"We are spending more money than we have ever spent before, and it does not work. ... I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. ... I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started ... and an enormous debt, to boot."
Maybe the spending of the New Deal did not bring back industry and business but it did provide a way for many, many people to buy something to eat and provided needed infrastructure such as getting electricity out to rural areas which business would not have done on its own because it was not cost effective.
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