Friday, March 6, 2009

Consider U.S. Rep. Paul Kanjorski the guide to economic stimulus.

The 13-term Democrat's 54-page guidebook to the $838 billion economic recovery package has been heralded as a useful and user-friendly resource by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who distributed copies to the full Democratic Caucus."My guidebook aims to provide a useful resource to individuals, families, businesses, community organizations, and local governments in order to ensure that everyone fully takes advantage of the many pieces of the bill and understands how it could impact them and their communities," Kanjorski, D-Nanticoke, said.
President Barack Obama signed the recovery bill, officially named the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, into law on Feb. 17.

Highlights of the package include the creation or saving of 3.5 million jobs, the reduction of taxes for 95 percent of workers and funding for infrastructure improvements, including highway and bridge repairs and new high-speed rail lines.Last week, Kanjorski said an initial installment of $14.5 million from the recovery package would be directed to projects in his district, which includes portions of Luzerne and Lackawanna counties.
"While the final recovery bill is not perfect, nor does it address all my concerns, I strongly believe that we need to take quick action to help Americans who are struggling and help spur job creation," Kanjorski said.

"The bill is estimated to create 7,800 jobs in my congressional district, which will greatly impact our economy during a critical time where the local unemployment rate recently surged to 7.7 percent, higher than both state and the country."

A downloadable version of Kanjorski's guidebook to the economic recovery package is available on his House Web site, kanjorski.house.gov.