Introduction and history
Stimulus package was formulated so as to counter the global economic crisis which had hit many countries across the world. This act is also known as the stimulus or The Recovery Act. The main aim of this act was to generate jobs, advance investment and the customer spending. This disputes that what the government spends should cover up the gap that is normally created by the fall of customer expenditures at recession time (Archie, 89). In most cases the government has a tendency of over spending and putting the state at a risk of either borrowing money or drawing funds from another source to recover the affected area. Consensus in economics treats the financial well rather than the fiscal policy. The flow of business was declined due to liquidity trap and also bringing to a decline the effectiveness of monetary policy. Many people thought that the fiscal stimulus was necessary but quite a number felt indifferent as the government arrears would however be used to pay the investments through the savings made. This is normally referred to by the economists as crowding out. Proponents oppose that harmful effects of crowding out may be inadequate when the investment has declined. This Act included national tax cuts, extension of unemployment positive outcomes and also community benefits.
Other things included in the act are expenditures in education, hospitals and also infrastructure not to forget the energy sector. Also included is a numerous non-profitable recovery related articles that were meant to be part of extensive plans. The contents of this act are legislative history, provision of the Act, Recommendations by economists, congressional budget office reports and recovery government. Republicans anticipated a number of amendments to the bill aimed at enhancing the share of tax cuts and slim down expenses and diminish the overall price. There were hints that infrastructure would be improved in a high rate regarding the republican suggestions and multiply the housing tax as it was put forward (Archie, 56). The freedom act was another amendment that was proposed to be considered. The only main difference in the house and the senate bill is that the senate put more funds in the health, payments to the elderly and energy programs, while the house bill concentrated more funds in education; infrastructure and they also considered aiding those people who have low income and also the jobless.
Regarding this issue the senate thought of providing unemployment benefits through the issue of bonus payments while the house decided to increase food benefits. The earned income tax credit makes available money to workers who earn low wages and families that have a minimum of three children. There is also the expanded college credit aimed at funding college and other related expenses. Those who own homes were also considered and assisted with projects like installing doors, air conditioners, furnaces and energy efficient windows. This statement of principal included the following; Preservation, creation of jobs and promotion of financial recovery and also to assist the most affected by recession. It also aimed at making available investments required to improve economic effectiveness where health and science is concerned. Areas like infrastructure, protection of environment, investing in transportation were also thought of as these will bring in long-term financial benefits.
Ethical issues
Ethics can be defined as the principle of choosing between right and wrong while exercising activities that concern other people or affects other people. In a profession or occupations, there is a professional code of ethics which assist the professionals in carrying out their duties with competence. Ethical issues are different depending on the issue at hand. For instance one can consider privacy or more accurate invasion to privacy as a concern when it comes to accessing individual information without permission (Bean, 200). For any rule or law to be implemented one must come up with either positive or negative impacts and for this matter, the following issues emerged. First and foremost is the issue of emerging technology and everybody must agree that this raises social, moral and legal issues. Moral issues for instance, there is the fact that invasion of privacy has been seen to bother many since cameras has been installed everywhere and therefore one cant do anything without being noticed. Legal issues arise when it becomes contentious to identify the owner of a particular piece of information and this is called intellectual property issue.
This means that it is a hard to know from whose mind the work originated from. The other issue that occurred in the course of development and implementation of this stimulus act is inequality in health accessibility. This means that there is need in analyzing the underserved citizens and also the citizens who are more likely to be subjected to intimidation. In addition to this conducting clinical and biomedical research in countries which have no enough resources is also an issue that cannot be understated here. The dominating issue here which can also be linked to emerging technologies is how the information which has been stored or saved in computer systems is shared. Many are the times when such information is accessed by unauthorized people when that information is in the information infrastructure. Genetic knowledge and translation of this knowledge to practices done in clinics is a thorn in the flesh. The issue comes in during the application of genetic knowledge and technology in human health improvement. Also sharing of the already known genetic information is raising an eye brow (Bean, 104). A Study needs to be conducted to establish issues that arise from the research and clinical practice which has not been clear. It is therefore required that measures are put into place to define how such information should be accessed. Provision of affordable or cost effective research is also under consideration and will assist in drafting the future policies which will be more effective. Disability through behavior change can be very risky and a wide number of neurological disorders. The challenge inhere lies in knowing the behavior models that make better the compliance with management regimens, declining stress and exercise regimens.
Analysis of policy’s efficacy
The implementation of this policy in the United States of America saw many benefits that had not been realized for along time but was a dream to many of the USA citizens. It is evident that a few months later after president Obama signed it in to law; almost 20 percent of the citizens had been paid or had gone to the tax payers and businesses as tax reductions. This law is also expected to increase the number of people employed in the United State of America and also scale the economic output. The federal budget deficit was also expected to increase by about $ 190 billion by part of 2009 that was remaining. Some of the economists were noted to disagree about the effectiveness of this bill while others were very optimistic that the bill would definitely have a positive impact on the current status of the economy. Some for instance had hopes that there would be increase in employment and GDP (Calmes, 12). Others expected a slight reduction of legislation due to the increase in the debt of the nation. It was noted that this bill touched almost every sector of the economy to make sure there was major revival of the whole economy. This means there was a positive effect in consumer spending, creation of employment and also promotion of investment in the nation as a whole.
Implementation
For this act to be implemented the government of the USA had a lot of work a head of it, for instance recovering economic bill just to mention but a few that will oversee the implementation of the act being done without delay and in an efficient ,effective and a high degree of transparency (Cappalli, 76). For this reason the government must make sure that the economic crisis must be dealt with as this is a serious threat in the whole world. This will ensure that the general prices of essential commodities tremendously go down in order for a common citizen to be able to afford them. Whereas citizens of United States of America are exercising their rights to pay the required tax which will hold the government accountable, it is very crucial for the government to come up with strategies on how this money should be spent so that every citizen will be satisfied with the manner in which it has been utilized. It is therefore required that each and every manager in the federal government should exercise his or her role to oversee implementation of this act. Agencies and departments who have been delegated should start developing plans for allocating human resources to meet recovery linked responsibilities and for diminishing potential execution risks (Moufang, 50). The office of budget and management is looking for a way forward which coordinates the development of an implementing guidance that will provide a lot of consistency and clarity.
This guidance covers the requirements and guidelines for a making available the performance and spending data which will be posted on the recovery web site so that it can provide the Americans with information that is detailed on where and how the recovery dollars are used. Setting up through internal controls slip mechanisms and various approaches so as to meet the responsibility purpose of the bill, and also to improve as necessary the average processes for granting and overseeing resources so as to meet the set time frames together with all the other challenges caused by the recovery bill’s accountability and transparency framework. However the importance of this effort cannot go unmentioned and the Americans are requested to trust the government with a standard level of funds so that they can address the economic emergency. There must be a proper prove to the Americans that dollars are put into investigation in strategies and initiatives that will differ in the community and all over the country. Commitments for openness and accountability will create a solid foundation upon which will be built as the issue of economic crisis is tackled as well as the other challenges that are facing the nation (Dalton, 23). The law requires that the agencies to put in place excellent mechanisms that will track accurately monitor and give a comprehensive report on tax payers’ money. Available funds should be distributed in a reasonable, prompt and a fair manner that is, the people who are receiving or using these funds should have a high level of transparency. All funds should be used only for the authorized purposes and for instance wastage, error, fraud and abuse should be mitigated. All goals should be achieved within the set time and all the projects that are funded under the act should not be delayed and there should be no misuse of funds.
Evaluation
The American recovery act has now become a law and new national strategies are expected to be in place like advanced vehicles, efficient energy, improvement in environment matters just to mention but a few that were the heart beat of presidential election that was held in the year 2008.The bill grants an extension of three years of the production tax for electricity drawn from wind facilities put in service as soon as possible and also for geothermal ,landfill gas, biomass, hydropower, marine facilities, waste- to-energy all these to be put in place by the year 2013.Investment tax credit is accessible to renewable energy and this makes available to those developing the project of wind, biomass, geothermal and additional technologies entitled for the production tax credit, an opportunity as an alternative of making use of the thirty percent investment tax credit that earlier was only practical to solar and further technology projects. It is also necessary to limit the energy on investment tax credit (De-Kluyver, 98). This will permit individuals and businesses to meet the requirements for all the amount of the investment tax credit although their assets are being funded by trade development bonds or promoted by energy financing. The donation will equal to thirty percent of the project total cost.
This donation will be put in place within a minimum of sixty days after the application has been submitted. Increased credit for alternative fuel pumps wishes to enhance the magnitude of credits for putting alternative fuel pumps at stations that sell gas from thirty percent to fifty percent. Advanced energy manufacturing credits will make available two billion value of transmitted manufacturing credit investment at a rate of thirty percent (Goodwin-Gill, 76). This will be appropriate to projects that are generating or retooling producing facilities to create mechanisms that are used to produce renewable energy, systems for storage in electric and fusion electric cars. Plug-in electric drive vehicle credit enhances tax credit for plug-in electric vehicles that has met the requirements for the first two hundred thousand put in service.
Five year carry-back provision for operating losses of small businesses is aimed at extending the carry-back phase for the disposable operating losses’ from 2-5 years for levy years. Extends bonus depreciation this is the short term increase of bonus decrease in value up to fifty percent that the legislature enacted the previous year. The write offs can be made relevant to expenditures ranging from pounds 250,000 to the newly increased verge of pounds 800,000.Total direct spending for renewable energy and energy efficiency enhances direct spending for replenishment of energy and energy effectiveness programs towards the coming ten years. It is an essential factor for all the electricity framework to be improved as electricity stands out to be the most important asset in any nation if any progress has to take place since most of the projects that are done consume a greater capacity of electricity, not to forget the transmission systems which should also be constructed and replaced if necessary. There should also be need to allocate grants for the manufacture of improved batteries like the lithium ion and software designers.
Recommendation
This Act has had a great impact in the economy of the USA but a few things need to be done so as to improve the effectiveness of such bills in future (Kelly, 23). The first thing is to revise the bill so that more measures and strategies can be drafted on how the government should spend the money which the citizens have paid as tax. This will ensure that the government has held its self accountable to its people. It is also recommended that the amount that the consumer is spending be revised to ensure that the common citizen does not have difficulties when it comes to accessing the basic needs. Though the bill has enabled most people to get employment this should not mean that its time to relax (Leonhard, 54). The government should come up with ways of creating more and more jobs since the population is increasing and also people from other countries are acquiring the citizenship of USA.
Works cited
Archie, Barris et al. Business and Society: Ethics and Stakeholder Management, 7th Ed. South- Western, 2008. ISBN: 13: 978-0-324-56939-1.
Bean, Charles, by Charles Bean taken from the book:Is there a new consensus in macroeconomics? 2007.
Calmes, Jackie.House Passes Stimulus Plan Despite G.O.P. Opposition, New York Times.
Cappalli, Richard. The Disappearance of Legal Method, 1997 Temp: L. Rev. 393.
Dalton, Clare: An Essay in the Deconstruction of Contract Doctrine.Yale L.J. 1997.
De-Kluyver, Camilla and Cornelis, Angeli. A Primer on Corporate Governance: Business Expert Press. 2009. ISBN: 978-1-60649-004-4.
Goodwin-Gill, Guy. Ordre Public Considered and Developed, 2008.
Kelly, Eugene. The Basics of Western Philosophy: Greenwood Press, 2006.
Leonhard, David. Economic Scene: Judging Stimulus by Job Data Reveals Success: New York Times. 2010.
Moufang, Rainer. The Concept of Ordre Public and Morality in Patent Law, in Geertrui Van Overwalle (Ed.), Patent Law, Ethics and Biotechnology, Katholieke Universiteit Brussel, Bruxelles, 1998.