Market Update 9.9.2011

Obama Offers $447B Stimulus Plan to Spur Jobs President Barack Obama called on Congress to pass a jobs plan that would inject $447 billion into the economy through infrastructure spending, subsidies to local governments to stem teacher layoffs and cutting in half the payroll taxes paid by workers and small-business owners. The package is heavily geared toward tax cuts, which account for more than half the dollar value of the stimulus, “The question is whether, in the face of an ongoing national crisis, we can stop the political circus and actually do something to help the economy,” Obama told a joint session of Congress tonight. A $105 billion infrastructure proposal includes money for school modernization, transportation projects and rehabilitation of vacant properties. Most of the economic impact from the infrastructure spending would be next year, though some of it would come in 2013, an administration official said. The $35 billion in direct aid to state and local governments would save the jobs of 280,000 teachers, according to a White House fact sheet.