Republicans Pledge to Cost Americans Jobs

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-- A stop on all unspent money authorized as part of last year's stimulus bill . . . Republican Pledge to America"


Sept. 26, 2010

Loss of stimulus funding will cost jobs

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 (UPI) -- Unless Congress extends a $1 billion New Deal-style stimulus program next week, tens of thousands of people will be out of work again, officials said.

The program is part of the Obama administration's $787 billion stimulus act, and will expire next week unless Congress decides to keep it alive, the New York Times reported.

The program has employed people across the United States, and has paid rent and kept food on the table in communities like Perry County, Tenn., where it helped pay for about 400 new jobs. It reduced the county's unemployment rate from 25 percent to 14 percent, the report said.

____ An analysis by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal policy institute in Washington, said about 130,000 adults were able to get jobs because of the stimulus program.

read: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2010/09/26/Loss-of-stimulus-funding-will-cost-jobs/UPI-43031285507137/


GOP's New 'Pledge to America' Puts $19B in Health Technology Stimulus Funds at Risk

House Republicans' newly released legislative agenda, "A Pledge to America," includes a call to cancel any unspent money from the economic stimulus program, according to a report by the New York Times.

Unspent stimulus funding would include $19 billion in healthcare IT incentives that HHS plans to dole out to hospitals and physicians offices that upgrade their IT systems to meet federal "meaningful use" criteria.

House GOP leaders did not specifically address HIT funding, but their pledge included plans to roll back non-discretionary spending to 2008 levels before the TARP and stimulus bills were passed, saving $100 billion in the first year alone.

As part of stimulus fudning, each hospital could receive as much as $11 millionb and physicians' offices could receive as much as $44,000 to $64,000 per physician. The 21-page plan also calls for the repeal of the healthcare reform law, presuming a GOP takeover of Congress in the November elections.

read: http://www.beckershospitalreview.com/healthcare-information-technology/gops-new-pledge-to-america-puts-19b-in-hit-stimulus-funds-at-risk.html


NYT - Job Loss Looms as Part of Stimulus Act Expires

Tens of thousands of people will lose their jobs within weeks unless Congress extends one of the more effective job-creating programs in the $787 billion stimulus act: a $1 billion New Deal-style program that directly paid the salaries of unemployed people so they could get jobs in government, at nonprofit organizations and at many small businesses . . .

The federal program has helped employ nearly 130,000 adults and has paid for nearly an equal number of summer jobs for young people, according to an analysis by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal policy institute in Washington.

If the program is allowed to lapse, up to 26,000 workers in Illinois will lose their jobs in the coming weeks, along with 12,000 workers in Pennsylvania and thousands more in other states, according to LaDonna Pavetti, the director of the center’s welfare reform and income support division.

The money came from a pot of $5 billion that was included in the stimulus package as an emergency fund for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, the main cash welfare program for families with children. Of the $4.3 billion that has been approved so far, $1.4 billion has gone toward basic assistance, $1.8 billion has been used to help families pay one-time emergency expenses like rent and utility bills, and a little over $1 billion has been used to subsidize jobs.

read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/us/26stimulus.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

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