Tax policy

Obama Plan Includes $300 Billion in Tax Cuts - NYTimes.com

Página 1 de 3

This copy is for your personal, noncommercial use only. You can order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers here or use the "Reprints" tool that appears next to any article. Visit www.nytreprints.com for samples and additional information. Order a reprint of this articlenow.

January 5, 2009

Obama Plan Includes $300 Billion in Tax Cuts
By PETER BAKER and CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON — President-elect Barack Obama plans to include about $300 billion in tax cuts for workers

and businesses in his economic recovery program as he seeks to win over Congressional skeptics worried that he was too focused on government spending, advisers said Sunday. The legislationMr. Obama’s team is developing with Congressional Democrats will devote about 40 percent of the cost to tax cuts, including his centerpiece campaign promise to provide credits up to $500 for most workers, costing roughly $150 billion. The package will also include more than $100 billion in tax incentives for businesses to create jobs and invest in equipment or factories. The overall package, of $675billion to $775 billion, is taking shape as Mr. Obama arrived in Washington and planned to begin trying to build support in Congress and among the broader public for his approach to stimulating the economy. Mr. Obama, who flew to the capital Sunday to join his family in a hotel suite while awaiting his inauguration, planned to meet with Congressional leaders on Monday and deliver a speech onThursday laying the ground for his emerging economic program. Although some tax cuts were always expected to be included in Mr. Obama’s economic package, his team disclosed the scope and some details of the plans Sunday at a time when Republicans have begun voicing the tax cuts in the plan, Obama aides hope to frame it as a balanced, pragmatic approach.

criticism of what they describe as anopen-checkbook approach to spending. By focusing more attention on Mr. Obama will use his public events this week to promise what one adviser called “radical reforms” to will focus on changing Pentagon contracting and aid to corporate America, advisers said. He will also

impose more control over the regular federal budget down the road. Among other areas, the president-elect

designate a chiefperformance officer and a chief technology officer Wednesday to help make government more efficient, they said. Still, Democratic leaders in Congress acknowledged that the economic package would not be ready for Mr. Obama’s signature immediately after his inauguration Jan. 20 as they once hoped. “It’s going to be very difficult to get the package put together that early so that it can have sufficienttime to be reviewed, and then sufficient time to be debated and passed,” Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland,

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/us/politics/05spend.html?_r=1&th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print

1/5/2009

Obama Plan Includes $300 Billion in Tax Cuts - NYTimes.com

Página 2 de 3

the House majority leader, said on “Fox News Sunday.” Mr. Hoyer said a more likely goal wouldbe mid-February before Congress leaves on a President’s Day recess. “We certainly want to see this package passed through the House of Representatives no later than the end of Mr. Hoyer said. this month, get it over to the Senate, and have it to the president before we break for the presidential break,” Congressional Republicans continued to press for more public hearings and study, and some oftheir leaders Republican leader, proposed Sunday that any money distributed to the states be provided as loans rather than outright grants. “Nobody thinks we ought to be spending this money on things like mob museums and waterslides,” Mr. threw out their own ideas for what should be in the plan. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the

McConnell said on “This Week” on ABC. “And if the money were...