WHITE HOUSE: STIMULUS PACKAGE WOULD BENEFIT COLORADANS

WHITE HOUSE: STIMULUS PACKAGE WOULD BENEFIT COLORADANS

The current compromise version of a federal economic-stimulus package could create or save 59,000 Colorado jobs over the next two years, according to President Barack Obama’s administration.

The White House analysis estimated the stimulus bill could save or create as many as 8,400 jobs in the 4th Congressional District. That’s all or parts of 18 northern and eastern Colorado counties, including all of Larimer, most of Weld and the Longmont corner of Boulder County.

Gov. Bill Ritter — like Obama, a Democrat — said the proposed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that’s now awaiting final congressional approval “will create jobs in Colorado for (the) New Energy Economy, transportation and water projects.”

The stimulus measure will allow Colorado to “continue creating renewable energy, efficiency and weatherization jobs and continue making Colorado a renewable energy research leader,” Ritter said in a Thursday statement.

“It also will support vital safety-net services in areas like Medicaid, unemployment benefits and job training for people and families suffering the most,” Ritter added. “It will provide important tax relief, and it will make key investments in education right away to ensure technological and innovation advances for tomorrow.”

Evan Dreyer, Ritter’s press secretary, provided the Reporter-Herald with a copy of the Obama administration’s state-by-state and congressional district-by-congressional district jobs projections.

Earlier versions of the recovery package collected no Republican support in the U.S. House and only three GOP votes in the Senate. Critics of the measure charge it won’t result in the stimulus and won’t create or save the 3.5 million jobs that the president and Democratic-majority congressional leaders have contended.

The Obama administration’s analysis of the current $789 billion package argues that the measure’s “immediate, tangible impacts” would include:

• Tax cuts of up to $800 for 1,870,000 Colorado workers and their families.

• An additional $100 per month in unemployment insurance benefits to 173,000 Colorado workers who have lost their jobs in the recession, as well as extended unemployment benefits for another 36,000 laid-off Colorado workers.

• Funds to modernize classrooms, laboratories and libraries in at least 99 Colorado schools.

• A $2,500 partially refundable tax credit for college students’ expenses, which the analysis said should benefit 36,000 Colorado families.

On a national basis, the White House analysis said, the bill will save billions of dollars in health care costs by computerizing everyone’s health care records in the coming five years.

The analysis said the measure would double renewable-energy generating capacity over three years’ time, creating enough energy from such sources as wind and the sun to power 6 million American homes.

The Obama administration’s report said the measure will also “help transform our economy” by “enacting the largest investment increase in our nation’s roads, bridges and mass transit systems since the creation of the national highway system in the 1950s.”

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