EconomicCrisis.US

At first, it will trickle into paychecks in small, barely perceptible amounts: perhaps $12 or $13 a week for many American workers, in the form of lower tax withholding.

For the growing ranks of the unemployed, it will be more noticeable: benefit checks due to stop will keep coming, along with an extra $25 a week.

At the grocery store, a family of four on food stamps could find up to $79 more a month on their government-issued debit card.

And far bigger sums will appear, courtesy of Washington, on budget ledgers in state capitals nationwide: billions of dollars for health care, schools and public works.
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Americans are skeptical that an economic stimulus plan from the federal government will help the nation’s economy. This is perhaps due to the fact that most people think that the elected officials in Washington working on the plan are part of the economic problem as opposed to the solution.

Less than half (45 percent) of Americans think “Barack Obama’s proposed $825 billion dollar economic recovery plan” will help the economy. Twenty-nine percent think the plan will not make a difference, while 18 percent think it will hurt the economy. Democrats (63 percent) are much more likely than independents (43 percent) or Republicans (22 percent) to think the recovery plan will help.
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Sunlight was streaming through the window, yet David Walker declared it a rainy day.

“Most Americans don’t know what a rainy day is,” said Walker, the former U.S. comptroller general.

He’s referring to a rainy day in the fiscal sense, the ones we’re supposed to save for but don’t. Walker hopes the recession will awaken Americans to our real financial crisis — a burgeoning national debt that, including entitlement obligations, now tops $56 trillion.

Walker was in town Thursday as part of the Fiscal Wake-Up Tour, a nonpartisan effort to promote awareness of the need for fiscal reform. He left the government last year to head the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, which promotes fiscal responsibility.
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This is one recession Americans aren’t going to spend their way out of.

The Conference Board said Tuesday its Consumer Confidence Index edged down to 37.7 this month, a record low, from a revised 38.6 in December. It stood at about 87 just a year ago.

Americans are battered by headlines about massive job cuts, including thousands at Home Depot, Corning, General Motors and Caterpillar in just the past two days, and are still watching the values of their homes and retirement funds dwindle.
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