ARRA - An Investment in America’s Future
It’s no secret that the American economy has been suffering lately, and the regular people working hard to provide for their families have been the ones to bear the largest portion of the burden. The past couple of years have seen many large businesses collapse under the strain of irresponsible lending practices, and as a result many people have lost their homes, jobs and health insurance. To try to ease the pressure that many families and small businesses were feeling, the government passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, or ARRA for short.
Although many people have heard a lot of talk about the ARRA in the news and among their colleagues, there are still thousands of people that aren’t really sure what this historic piece of legislation was designed to do, and what it has or has not accomplished since it was passed. Basically this act, which is also referred to simply as The Stimulus by many analysts and reporters, was designed to inject money back into the struggling economy, to encourage Americans to continue to purchase goods and services. The act was also designed to implement federal tax cuts, increased benefits for the unemployed, as well as start to address a need for reform in the health care industry and other social services.
If you’re feeling less than stimulated and are wondering which parts of the ARRA were designed to help you specifically, you should know that most of the relief for everyday working class people has and will come in the form of tax credits. There are specific credits and deductions intended to encourage people to buy houses, trade their old cars in for more efficient ones, and make improvements to the energy efficiency of their current homes and apartments.
Another big part of the ARRA has been to encourage health care institutions to implement more efficient record keeping and research systems so that more doctors will have access to complete patient histories, as well as up to date scientific research that will allow them to provide more accurate diagnoses. Currently, many doctors and hospitals still rely on paper records which are easy to mess up and hard to transfer between physicians if the patient wants a second opinion. This lack of efficiency has resulted in misdiagnoses as well as over prescribing of medication in many cases. Some have proposed that a switch to electronic record keeping systems is a solution to this problem.
