Now that we have a president-elect, we can start to get an idea of what will happen to the economy. Obama hasn’t been specific in terms of how he’s going to accomplish (or pay for) a lot of these things, and it will be interesting to see how Congress tries to change his ideas once they hit the floor for a vote. Let’s look at what we do know.

Obama wants to lower taxes for the middle class, but hasn’t mentioned tax cuts for low-income families. The plan is to give a $500 refund to anyone that pays more than $500 in taxes ($1000 for married couples). This means if you file under your parents as most college kids do, this doesn’t effect you now. This also has no effect on people that pay less than $500 in taxes. For example, those who file independently of their parents but pull in less than about $8,000 a year. This is because you probably won’t even get to pay $500 in taxes, and therefore won’t qualify for his refund.

He does want to provide tax benefits to people paying for college, but that’s another thing that will likely go to parents, not college students themselves (but you can beg your parents for money when tax time rolls around).

Barack Obama has also made mention of having another economic stimulus package, though when he campaigned he pitched it as a way to relieve citizens of the price of gas. Well, gas has come down significantly, but this is still something he wants to do. This means that every family that files for taxes (probably your parents, and not you) will get $1,000 on top of the lower tax bill mentioned earlier. If you file independently of your parents, you will see this money as well.

Now that’s a lot of money being passed out, so you might want to save some of it. We’re the first generation in U.S. history to say that we don’t think we’ll be as well off as our parents. Part of the problem is the national debt. In order to pay it off, every American citizen would have to send the government a check for over $34,800. Add that to student loans and credit card debt, and the average college student is already in too deep.

Another major part of the soon to be Obama presidency will be war spending. He’s already announced his plans to spend more money on military personal, though plans to cut spending on the war sooner than Bush and McCain had planned. Depending on the amount of the increase on personnel, and the decrease in spending on the war, this could mean less room in the budget for social programs and the like. Either that, or it will mean a larger national debt to pay for it all. It could have the averse effect of lessening our budget, too. It all depends on the amount of the cuts.

So yes, you’ll get some money from President Obama, and you deserve it. But make sure you have a good plan for it, because Barack Obama will not likely be able to balance the budget for the first few years of his presidency due to the situation of the economy.

For more of Barack’s approach to fixing the economy, click here.

For more articles from our new Collegenomics section, click here.

For more of my articles, click here.

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