How Does the Stimulus Affect Me?

For the past year or so, I've been hearing a lot of the "Stimulus Plan". I must say that I did not know much about it. Is it a stimulus check coming to me personally? Or, is it a check that comes to an agency (state or federal government, non-profit government organizations, etc)? In either case, the thinking behind the plan is the same, this "Stimulus Plan" is to "stimulate" the economy. According to Obama's mindset, implementing this plan will issue stimulus checks to various agencies. Those agencies will then use those checks to conduct projects, such as road building, that will not only improve roads and the cities they're in, but create job opportunities. Key objectives of this plan is to decrease unemployment while improving the economy. By having the government borrow money and then spend it on the aforementioned projects, the overall result should be for new money to come into the government.

What does this have to do with me? From speaking with various students, the possibility of individuals receiving stimulus check is not as small as we think. In fact, many are asking questions and giving suggestions on what individuals should do pending they receive a check. One major piece of advice that is going around is to keep the money in the US. What I mean by this is for people to take their checks and spend them in stores where the money will stay in our country. As much as we'd love to, taking our checks to Wal-Mart does not keep the money in the US, but instead, sends it overseas (primarily China). Nothing against Wal-Mart, but most of their products are Chinese imports. What economists are suggesting is for people to spend their checks in "mom-and-pop" stores. Family owned businesses, restaurants, local establishments. This stimulates the local economy as we allow entrepreneurs' (i.e. recent graduates such as myself) establishments to grow. Furthermore, as small businesses begin to increase, more employment opportunities are created, AND that business can give back to the community.

I never knew much about this plan, but as I read and learned more, I see that it affects me in more ways than one. Coming on graduation in a few months and with the current state of the economy, job scarcity is a major concern. Should the bill be passed to implement the "Stimulus Plan", various organizations will received a check and possibly be placed in a better position to offer more jobs. On the other side, universities are in line to receive stimulus checks as well. Even though they cannot use it to on facility reconstruction and related activities, schools can use the monetary advances to increase the level education (by hiring more, expertise educators) and provide additional education resources for students. Either way, I see that this plan has benefits that I'd like to partake of, and I plan to keep watching as the bill moves along in this process.

(Ideas of this post were taken from the article "Heckonomics: The Stimulus: What the heck is it, and how's it supposed to work?" by Timothy P. Carney on January 21, 2009)