What's In The Stimulus Package, Anyway?

Weren't you wondering? Well, I was, so a colleague and I took to the streets of New York City and asked folks we met to help us explain some of the worthwhile public spending programs in the stimulus package President Obama just signed into law.

And that's just $395.2 billion of the great stuff in the legislation. You should check out this great tool from the New York Times [1] which walks through the entire stimulus package, piece by piece. Sure, $787 billion seems like a big number, but it's going to do even bigger things for our country --- just what we need for the enormous challenges we face. And the policies in this bill are things our country has needed for a long time to fix our economy for the long-term going forward!! It's a great piece of legislation and we all should know more about what's included.

PS --- We did this as part of a new podcast from the Movement Vision Lab at the Center for Community Change, your source for bold, new ideas about progressive movement building. Also in this latest podcast, I talk with James Mumm from National People's Action about making the bank bailout more accountable to the people. And Max Rameau from Take Back The Land describes organizing to liberate foreclosed houses and provide homes for families in need.

You can subscribe on iTunes [2] or download the mp3 file here [3].

These are exciting times in our nation, with grassroots organizations and activists like you winning change almost every day. But in the moment-to-moment work for social change, it's often hard to see the forest of long-term vision through the short-term trees. Consider the Movement Vision Lab podcast your guide to the big picture forest!