The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA): Implications

The total cost of this act comes to 5.4 percent of GDP. More than 70 percent of the money is to be spent by the end of fiscal year 2010.

Investing in energy efficiency ($97 billion) : The Obama admin has set three sweeping goals:

• Create millions of clean energy jobs over the next decade
• Cut oil imports by two million barrels a day over the same period
• Slash greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent

Investing in High tech ($200 billion incl indirect govt tech outlays) : Various projects are envisaged from airport security installations, software for tracking student performance, systems integration work in federal agencies, and optical fiber for new rural broadband networks. Every major construction project funded by the ARRA will need computers, s/w, IT services.

Investing in healthcare : The govt will spend $40 billion to subsidize the use of electronic medical records. Govt spending should increase the adoption of electronic records from 5 percent of doctors now to 90 percent of doctors by 2019.