Obama to Offer Aid for Families in State of the Union Address

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Obama to Offer Aid for Families in State of the Union Address
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON — President Obama will propose in his State of the Union address a package of modest initiatives intended to help middle-class families, including tax credits for child care, caps on some student loan payments and a requirement that companies let workers save automatically for retirement, senior administration officials said Sunday.

By focusing on what one White House official calls “the sandwich generation” — struggling families squeezed between sending their children to college and caring for elderly parents — Mr. Obama hopes to use his speech on Wednesday to demonstrate that he understands the economic pain of ordinary Americans. The proposals also include expanded tax credits for retirement savings and money for programs to help families care for elderly relatives.

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Mr. Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. plan to outline the proposals on Monday when they meet with the White House task force that has spent the past year examining ways to help the middle class.

While Mr. Obama has been shifting his focus toward job creation in recent weeks, an official said the president also wanted to spotlight what the White House regards as “critical areas where middle-class families need a helping hand to get ahead,” like paying for college and saving for retirement.

For example, the president is calling on Congress to nearly double the child care tax credit for families earning less than $85,000 — a proposal that, if adopted, would lower by $900 the taxes such families owe to the government. But the credit would not be refundable, meaning that families would not get extra money back on a tax refund.

Another of the president’s proposals, a cap on federal loan payments for recent college graduates at 10 percent of income above a basic living allowance, would cost taxpayers roughly $1 billion. The expanded financing to help families care for elderly relatives would cost $102.5 million — a pittance in a federal budget where programs are often measured in tens if not hundreds of billions of dollars. And the automatic paycheck deduction program would simply be a way to encourage workers to save, and would include tax credits to help companies with administrative costs.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/25/us/politics/25obama.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

Obama Will Preview Package of Middle Class Tax Cuts

Jan. 25 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama today will preview a package of tax cuts for the middle class, including an increased tax credit for child care, limits on student loan payments, and an expansion of tax credits to match retirement savings, according to an administration official.

The proposals preview one of the main themes the president plans to sound in his State of the Union Address on Jan. 27, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The plan was earlier reported by the New York Times.

The president will propose a requirement that all companies, regardless of size, allow their employees to enroll in direct-deposit retirement savings accounts.

At an event with Vice President Joe Biden this morning, Obama will announce a plan to enact new safeguards to protect retirement savings.

On child tax credits, the president wants to increase the deduction limit from 20 percent to 35 percent for families making under $85,000 a year, the official said. The White House calculates that such an increase would nearly double the tax credit for qualifying families.

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