Customer Reviews

Guide to the Stimulus: The Definitive Desk Reference to the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act 2009

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I'm the administrator at a community college with responsibilities for monitoring ARRA opportunities. It's very handy to have the text of the entire act in bound hardcopy - much better than printing it out. The author's indexes definitely add value. Recommended to anyone who is trying to figure out if ARRA has something for them.

This guide is very useful for me. In fact I keep it on my desk. I'm a CPA with lot of small business and individual clients. When a client asks me about how changes in the Recovery & Reinvestment Act are going to affect them, I can simply turn to my trusty Guide to the Stimulus desk reference, look up the Stimulus Finder chapter to find programs relevant to them, or look up the very one I want (eg. Alternative Minimum Tax), and then show them the marked-up pages in the Act itself. It's quick, effective, and impressive. I do subscribe to a service that upgrades my tax and accounting software for IRS changes which also informs me of changes due to the Act but there is nothing like the immediacy and ease of use of this book. It's certainly useful to have the full text of the Act in the book in nice readable format. All marked-up with gray highlighter; so much easier to read than on the web or by printing myself. I recommend it to CPAs and professional service providers.
Frederick K. Thompson CPA

A useful book, and timely, too. As an investor, I have been naturally looking for programs that will benefit companies I can invest in. I've been looking at green companies like solar and energy recently and we all know from the web and from newspapers there are a lot of programs in the Stimulus Bill that would help companies in my area. But there are so many projects and it is all so confusing, and the text of the Act on the web is so hard to read, that I am so grateful to find this book which pulls together all the funding in green technologies on a few pages and then helps me figure exactly which pages to look up in the Recovery Act to read the exact wording. I like the fact this book has the whole Act in it, in much more readable form than on the web and all marked-up, so it is easy to navigate around. The same author has also put out the Stimulus Cash Finder, which is cheaper but does not the full marked-up text of the Act in the same book. Personally, I like having everything all in the same place; a lot faster to find everything and easier to browse around. Nifty!

If you want to find out how the government is funding the disabled, Rupert Hart can help. He has taken the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of February 17 2009, popularly known as the Stimulus Package, and provided a comprehensive index with classification scheme.
First there is a big picture summarizing the totals for each government department. Then the act is broken into pieces - Titles and Resolutions - so you can find out that HR1-91 applies to the Federal Aviation Administration, for example.

The third section takes each program and shows the amount allocated. I can see in this section that HR1-91 allocates $200M for FAA power systems, air traffic control centers, towers, airport lighting, navigation and landing equipment.

The most useful section comes between pages 39 and 99, where the different programs are sorted by application or recipient. So, under Transportation, I can compare $1B allocated for explosive detection systems under HR1-49 at airports with the $200M under HR1-91 for the FAA.

The final section is the Act, which has been indexed. Allocated amounts are highlighted (albeit only in gray).

This book is hefty and easier to read online than on paper, and I would like to see an online version with smart links to indexed items to enable rapid lookup. Color, unfortunately unavailable on the Kindle, would have enhanced the ability to see highlighting.

Rupert Hart has converted lengthy prose and it easy-to-read tables. This is a useful guide for policy wonks and politications, as well as any contractor wanting a high level look at where there is action.

My quest is to find stimulus funding for energy efficiency retrofits in homes. The Guide to the Stimulus provided me quickly with the actual bill's language that pertained to my search quickly. After a brief introduction on how to use this guide, I went right to the Stimulus Finder where I found several categories that fit: Construction, Energy and Renewable Energy. A quick scan allowed me to find the amount of funding and the actual legislation pertaining to energy efficiency. Just to be sure that I did not miss anything, I located the Index where topics such as Green and Energy & Retrofits lead me right to the exact section I needed. What a timesaver this guide is for anyone who needs to know specific stimulus information in a matter of minutes.

Rick Williams, Green Building Mortgage Consultant

Scratching your head over the American Recovery & Investment Act, 2009.
Wondering what's in it for me? Need an interpreter? Jargen and reams of pages a turn off. Look no further, this book has all you'll ever need to understand the ARI Act. Laid out with easy reference, clear condenced chapters and charts. Easy to get right at what you are looking for and find funds for you, your non-profit or business.
Took the headache right out of trying to interpret the lingo!