President Obama called on everyday Americans to support the Recovery and Reinvestment Plan on Monday night, and on Tuesday the U.S. Senate listened.
The $838 billion plan was passed, with the help of votes from three Republicans and will immediately begin to impact Missouri and other states.
Obama said, “this plan will put people to work right now by making direct investments in areas like health care, energy, education and infrastructure — investments that save jobs, create new jobs and new businesses and help our economy grow again.”
But is there a guarantee that the African-American community will reap benefit from billions of dollars in transportation, infrastructure, education and healthcare projects that are now being considered for funding by the U.S. government?
After an inquiry by the St. Louis American of how inclusion will be guaranteed as part of the stimulus bill last Thursday, the White House sent a detailed response.
“The majority of the provisions in this recovery and reinvestment plan will assist African Americans, who have been dramatically impacted during these tough times, in making it through this period with tax cuts for 95 percent of families, programs including extension of unemployment benefits, COBRA healthcare benefits, and food stamps and temporary assistance for needy families (TANF), while also preparing them for new opportunities with training for new jobs in existing and emerging industries,” according to a White House statement.
In regard to job creation and a staggering 12.1 percent unemployment rate for African Americans, the White House said the stimulus plan “will create jobs with its investments in rebuilding roads and bridges and retrofitting government buildings while also working to help prepare job seekers for the 21st century economy with training for new ‘green jobs’ and other emerging industries.”
The key is ensuring that African Americans have access to information about all of these opportunities.
“This is the most serious economic emergency since the Great Depression. We have moved to create and protect 3-4 million American jobs. We have acted to rebuild crumbling roads and bridges, transform health-care information technology, make obsolete schools safe, invest in renewable energy, buy up foreclosed properties and strengthen critical public transit systems,” U.S. Rep. Wm. Lacy Clay said.
“Instead of bailing out Wall Street, we’re investing in jobs for Main Street. And as President Obama requested, 75 percent of this investment will create jobs within the next 18 months.”
Education
With 95 percent of African American children attending public schools, the plan makes “a historic investment in school modernization sufficient to renovate and modernize 10,000 schools, which also saves or creates jobs.”
It also doubles the Early Head Start program which will provide additional pre-k services to more than 350,000 children and create at least 15,000 new teaching and teaching assistant jobs. This plan provides resources so that potential education cuts can be bypassed in the immediate future.
Health care
With African Americans suffering from higher percentages of chronic diseases such as heart disease, kidney disease and diabetes while also suffering from a lack of access to quality, the plan offers a new tax credit to help families keep their health insurance through COBRA as well as a new option in Medicaid for low-income people who lack access to COBRA.
Clay said, “I’m also very pleased that the stimulus bill contains aggressive for one of my top legislative priorities – a secure, national electronic health-care records system, which will help cut the cost of health care.”
Missouri gets what?
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 Infrastructure Investments for Missouri includes $688 million for highway and bridge construction and repair; $74 million for public transit and $160 million for clean water.
Additional Investments include $1.2 billion for stabilization of vital services like public safety, Medicaid and unemployment benefits.
The Missouri Budget Project prepared an analysis of the impact on Missouri. The House proposal assumes an increase of 4.9 percent in the FMAP (the federal match for Medicaid spending), with larger increases in states that have high unemployment rates. Missouri will receive an estimated $1.5 billion over 9 quarters (October 2008 through December 2010). In state fiscal year 2009 (the current fiscal year) Missouri is estimated to receive $402 million in additional funds for Medicaid.
Amy Blouin, Missouri Budget Project executive director, added that Missouri is expected to receive $735.7 million for education and $475 million to stabilize other services over a two-year period (July 2009 – June 2010).
Additional education funding would include an additional $211.5 million for services for special education. Missouri would receive $126.1 million for higher education facility improvements and repair.