Obama rolls out new proposals to fix the economy.

By CJP | October 13, 2008

  Barack Obama and John McCain both spoke about the economy in speeches today.  We’ll take up Obama’s speech now, since he laid out a new set of economic proposals to address the meltdown. McCain’s campaign says he’ll have new plans to unveil tomorrow, so we’ll hold off on Johnny Mac until then.   

Obama today proposed:

• A temporary tax credit for companies that create new jobs in the United States over the next two years.
• Penalty-Free Withdrawals from IRAs and 401(k)s in 2008 and 2009 up to a maximum of $10,000 – without facing a tax-penalty this year (including retroactively) and next year.  
• Ninety-day foreclosure moratorium for homeowners that are acting in good faith.  Obama said that financial institutions participating in the Treasury’s financial rescue plan should be required to adhere to a homeowners code of conduct, including a 90-day foreclosure moratorium for any homeowners living in their homes that are making good faith efforts to pay their mortgages. 
• A lending facility to address the credit crisis for states and localities. Obama is calling on the Federal Reserve and the Treasury to work to establish a facility to lend to state and municipal governments, similar to the steps the Fed recently took to provide liquidity to the commercial paper market.

According to his campaign, Obama’s plan also calls for temporarily eliminating taxes on unemployment insurance benefits; “keeping all options on the table to help our automakers weather the financial crisis;” and instructing the Treasury Department to help unfreeze markets for individual mortgages, student loans, car loans, loans for multi-family dwellings and credit card loans.

Once we hear from McCain, we’ll get all of this into a CJP Candidate Compare chart so that the Janes can have this info for their ready reference.

Topics: Economy, The Democrats

Comments