Obama's Stimulus Package Hits My Town Hard

People are weeping—with joy. Jobs have already been saved and creation of 14,000 new jobs was announced immediately—mostly in research and development for projects and industries that will benefit this area for many, many years to come. The local development counsel, whose public announcements had become desultory and infrequent, is now hard at work, attracting new business to the area. The skeletons of new houses, long abandoned, are beginning to flesh out, as the local real estate organization (which just gave a life-time achievement award to a Republican politician who rails against this kind of progress) is expressing optimism about the months ahead.

I was personally pleased to learn that my paycheck at the end of the month will be fatter—to the tune of $400 to $800 divided by twelve. Multiply that by the number of workers in the area—some 200,000—and that means that a lot of small businesses won’t be shutting their doors, after all.

Thank you, Mr. President!