Notice

Stimulus.org is a historical project of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which tracked the money spent by the 2009 stimulus bill. This site is not regularly updated.

2009 Stimulus (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act)

Maximum Amount: 
$968.00 billion
Amount Spent: 
$762.00 billion
Deficit Impact: 
$833.00 billion

In February of 2009, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, which included $787 billion of spending and tax cuts over ten years. Among the tax provisions of the bill included a $400 per person "Making Work Pay" tax credit, a patch of the Alternative Minimum Tax, numerous temporary breaks for businesses, an expansion of several tax credits, and a number of provisions to reduce taxation on public bonds. Among the spending provisions included considerable infrastructure investment (especially for "green investments"), an expansion of unemployment benefits and food stamps (SNAP), subsidies for individuals to purchase health insurance after they have lost their jobs, considerable aid to states -- especially through Medicaid and Education spending, and other provisions.

Notes: 

CRFB analysis of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act here.

Maximum amount is the peak cumulative cost of a provision over the period 2009-2019. Since many of the categories actually recoup some of the outlays and tax cuts in later years, the Maximum Amount column on Stimulus.org often exceeds the Deficit Impact. Deficit impact is taken from CBO's deficit impact calculation for 2009-2019.

CBO orginally estimated that the bill would cost $787 billion over 10 years. However, in the January 2010 baseline, CBO estimated that the total cost of the bill would total $862 billion, after making several upward revisions (including $21 billion more for unemployment insurance, $34 billion more for food stamps, and $26 billion more for the Build America Bond program).

The latest CBO estimate in November 2012 puts the cost of ARRA at $833 billion.

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