President-elect Barack Obama working on a $300 billion tax cut plan
BY CATEY HILL
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Monday, January 5th 2009, 12:01 PM

President-elect Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are working on a plan that would deliver about $300 billion worth of tax cuts to individuals and businesses, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The Obama economic proposal includes $500 tax cuts for many workers and $1,000 for couples, as well as more than $100 billion for businesses, an Obama transition official told the Associated Press.

The proposed tax cuts, which would make up about 40 percent of the economic stimulus package, may make it easier to attract Republican support for an economic-stimulus package, as many Republicans have said that economic initiatives should rely more heavily on tax cuts rather than spending, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The size of the proposed tax cuts could reach $775 billion over two years, which is a larger amount than many Democrats and Republicans in Congress had anticipated, according to the Wall Street Journal.

If enacted, the Obama tax-cut proposals could total more in two years than either of President Bush's tax cuts did in their first two years, according to the Associated Press.

Bush's 10-year, $1.35 trillion tax cut of 2001 - considered the largest tax cut - was made up of $174 billion of cuts during its first two full years, according to Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation.

Obama had hoped to have Congress enact the recovery plan in time for him to sign it when he takes office in January, but Robert Gibbs, spokesman for Obama, said that was "very, very unlikely."

"We don't anticipate that Congress will have passed, both houses, an economic recovery agreement by the time the inauguration takes place," Gibbs told the Associated Press.

"Economists from across the political spectrum agree that if we don't act swiftly and boldly, we could see a much deeper economic downturn that could lead to double-digit unemployment and the American dream slipping further and further out of reach," Obama said in his Saturday radio speech.