On Feb. 13, 2009, Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.  A direct response to the economic crisis, the Recovery Act has three immediate goals:

• Create new jobs as well as save existing ones
  
  
• Spur economic activity and invest in long-term economic growth
  
  
• Foster unprecedented levels of accountability and transparency in government spending
  
  

The Recovery Act intends to achieve those goals by:

• Providing $288 billion in tax cuts and benefits for millions of working families and businesses
  
  
• Increasing federal funds for education and health care as well as entitlement programs (such as extending unemployment benefits) by $224 billion
  Making $275 billion available for federal contracts, grants and loans
  
  
• Requiring recipients of Recovery funds to report quarterly on the amount of monies spent, the status of the project, the number of jobs created and/or saved, and other details, all of which are posted on Recovery.gov so that the public can track where the total $787 billion Recovery funds are going and how they are being spent.
  
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  Source: U.S. Goverment site.  Recovery Act FAQ...     click here to download the Recovery Act in PDF format