US President Barack Obama said on Saturday that the economic stimulus plan he signed into law on Tuesday will start having an impact as soon as a few weeks from now, in the form of tax cut.
"The Treasury Department began directing employers to reduce the amount of taxes withheld from paychecks -- meaning that by April 1, a typical family will begin taking home at least 65 dollars more every month," the president announced in his weekly radio and Internet address.
"Never before in our history has a tax cut taken effect faster or gone to so many hardworking Americans," he noted, adding that 95 percent of all working families will get a tax cut.
Under the plan, workers can expect to see about 13 dollars extra in their weekly paychecks from a new 400-dollar tax credit to be doled out through the rest of the year. Couples can get up to 800 dollars.
People who do not earn enough money to pay income taxes and poor families with three or more children will get an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit.
"But as important as it was that I was able to sign this plan into law, it is only a first step on the road to economic recovery. And we cannot fail to complete the journey," said Obama.
That will require stabilizing and repairing the banking system, and getting credit flowing again to families and businesses, and stemming home foreclosures as well.
"And it will require doing all we can to get exploding deficits under control as our economy begins to recover," he said.
The president said that he will convene a fiscal summit of independent experts and unions, advocacy groups and members of Congress, to discuss how to cut the nation's trillion-dollar deficit.
Obama's 787-billion-dollar stimulus plan, a mix of federal spending and tax cuts, is designed to revive the ailing US economy and save or create 3.5 million American jobs.
While injecting money into areas such as transportation, education, energy and health care, the plan also provides aid to recession victims through tax cuts, extended unemployment benefits and short-term health insurance assistance.
(Xinhua News Agency February 22, 2009)