GIZIMODO: If you had $15.6 septillion and 94 cents in your account, would you save the world from the economic crisis or build a Death Star, destroy the world, and move on to invade the galaxy? A guy called Ryszard Gold—who probably is an alien villain from the Outer Rim planets and got a 49-point score in our Geek Social Aptitude Test—made the calculation of the most basic Death Star’s price with current materials and space transport costs here on Earth. Here’s a quick summary…MORE
HOT DOCUMENT: So we just got this email from the White House Press Office outlining state by state how the Obama Stimulus Plan will, um, stimulate the economy. The Devil is in the details and you can find them after the jump. But more importantly, we NEVER got an email from the Bush White House Press Office. Not one. Nor did we ever get one from Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, JFK, FDR, Lincoln or George fucking Washington’s White House Press Office. So, to get this email from the Obama White House, after we just sophmorically posted a doctored pic of the President toking on a bong, well, in our professional opinion this is change we can believe in!
White House Releases Additional State-Specific Impacts of American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan
Fact sheet details employment, infrastructure, education, and health care gains from recovery plan
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The White House today released additional state-specific details on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan. The recovery plan will create and save jobs in the near future while addressing long-neglected needs that are critical to laying the foundation for a strong economic future. Nationwide, Obama’s plan will create or save 3-4 million jobs over the next two years. Additionally, 95% of American workers will get a tax cut and tens of billions will be invested in roads, bridges, mass transit, flood control, and clean water projects. Click here or see below for state-specific information detailing the employment, infrastructure, education, and health care impacts of the recovery plan.
AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT PLAN:
THE IMPACT FOR Pennsylvania
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan is a nationwide effort to create jobs, jumpstart growth and transform our economy for the 21st century. Across the country, this plan will help businesses create jobs and families afford their bills while laying a foundation for future economic growth in key areas like health care, clean energy, education and a 21st century infrastructure. In Pennsylvania, this plan will deliver immediate, tangible impacts, including:
· Creating or saving 151,700 jobs over the next two years. Jobs created will be in a range of industries from clean energy to health care, with over 90% in the private sector. [Source: White House Estimate based on Romer and Bernstein, “The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan.” January 9, 2009.]
· Providing a making work pay tax cut of up to $1,000 for 4,910,000 workers and their families. The plan will make a down payment on the President’s Making Work Pay tax cut for 95% of workers and their families, designed to pay out immediately into workers’ paychecks. [Source: White House Estimate based on IRS Statistics of Income]
· Making 138,000 families eligible for a new American Opportunity Tax Credit to make college affordable. By creating a new $2,500 partially refundable tax credit for four years of college, this plan will give 3.8 million families nationwide – and 138,000 families in Pennsylvania – new assistance to put college within their reach. [Source: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analysis of U.S. Census data]
· Offering an additional $100 per month in unemployment insurance benefits to 1,056,000 workers in Pennsylvania who have lost their jobs in this recession, and providing extended unemployment benefits to an additional 156,000 laid-off workers. [Source: National Employment Law Project]
· Providing funding sufficient to modernize at least 409 schools in Pennsylvania so our children have the labs, classrooms and libraries they need to compete in the 21st century economy. [Source: White House Estimate]
In addition to this immediate assistance for Pennsylvania, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan will help transform our economy by:
· Doubling renewable energy generating capacity over three years, creating enough renewable energy to power 6 million American homes.
· Computerizing every American’s health record in five years, reducing medical errors and saving billions of dollars in health care costs.
· Launching the most ambitious school modernization program on record, sufficient to upgrade 10,000 schools.
· Enacting the largest investment increase in our nation’s roads, bridges and mass transit systems since the creation of the national highway system in the 1950s.