Degree Type
Honors Capstone Project
Date of Submission
Spring 5-1-2010
Capstone Advisor
Professor Don Dutkowsky
Honors Reader
Professor Elizabeth Ashby
Capstone Major
Economics
Capstone College
Management
Audio/Visual Component
no
Capstone Prize Winner
no
Won Capstone Funding
no
Honors Categories
Social Sciences
Subject Categories
Economic History | Economics
Abstract
This paper tracks and analyzes the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, better known as the Obama stimulus plan during the 2009 year. As one of the most expensive public policies in history, the ARRA was designed to turn around an ailing economy by creating and preserving jobs, investing in key areas, providing relief to States and individuals, and tax cuts. Thus, it is important and useful to track the policy in order to see if it is doing what it is supposed to. Using federal agency Financial and Activity Reports, I create detailed graphs showing where the stimulus money has gone, what the money has been spent on, and how much of the money has been spent. In the creation of the ARRA, President Obama promised a transparent process. The website, www.recovery.gov, provides detailed information to the public on how the ARRA works and where the money is going. This website provides the data I used to track the ARRA. This paper finds that the stimulus, by the end of 2009, is on track and that 2010 will see the remaining bulk of money spent as expected. A third of the non-tax provisions have been spent. Of this money spent, approximately twice as much was spent on entitlement provisions than contracts, grants, and loans. The major entitlement provisions included unemployment compensation and Medicaid. The major programs that saw money through contracts, grants, and loans were State relief for education budgets and developing transportation infrastructure.
Recommended Citation
Cassel, Gregory, "America in Recovery: Tracking and Analyzing the Obama Stimulus During 2009" (2010). Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All. 389.
https://surface.syr.edu/honors_capstone/389
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
