It looks like Bush’s economic stimulus package is going to take the form of instant cash bonuses: $800 for individuals and $1600 for married couples. That’s dumb, everyone should get Costco coupons! All kidding aside, the NYT says the ~$500 rebates granted after the 2001 recessions proved “surprisingly effective…people spent most of the money rather than salting it away in savings or using it to pay down credit card debt. A 2004 study by economists at the Department of Labor, Princeton University, and the University of Pennsylvania found that households spent between 20 and 40 percent of the rebate within three months and another third in the following three months.” Will this “wealth surge” be just what the countries needs to beat back the forces of recession holed up in our economy, terrorizing our financial well-being? Bring on Operation Cash Dump.
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…yeah I’m totally going to use it to pay down debt. But truthfully. I’ll probably get an iPod and use the rest (plus my regular tax return) to pay down credit card debt.
@ClayS: Wrong – this rebate would go to lower/mid-income Americans, the ones who pay LESS in taxes — so it’s your tax money being returned to someone else, or someone else’s money returned to you, depending on whether you managed a hedge funds or flipped burgers. That’s redistribution of income.
@lincolnparadox: Not shop at walmart? Only if you don’t care about the most local economy of all–the one residing in your back pocket.
Buying stuff at Walmart makes me richer because my dollar goes farther.
I suspect this is an advance, NOT refund, just like the last one was…
@alexander: Simple really, my next door neighbors have 4 yes 4 families living in thier home. Total of 18 people living in a 3 bedroom house. The garage is also converted into a bedroom. I belive the last time I talked to them there were 7 adults and 11 kids. Of the 7 adults 2 were legal(they owned the house) the other 5 worked under the table so no taxes.
@cef21: That’s a pretty shortsighted view. Continuously shopping there only contributes to the dollar’s plummeting value. If all our money keeps getting funneled to China through Walmart, they’ll still have the cheapest prices, but it will be the only place to get a bottle of coke for under $47.
Course, there are other major industries/corporations that are funneling our money to other countries, but Walmart may be the most brazen company doing it under the guise of saving Americans money.
K-BO
My apologies: I wasnt thinking straight .. Was thinking of something else
My wife and I did get the 2001 rebate of a whole $300 between the two of us. That was $150 per person. We made roughly 15k that year.
If this “rebate” is anything like the one in 2001, then it means we file our taxes as normal (ASAP!), and we get the rebate later in the year in the mail (After we get the tax refund).
At least, that’s what happened to us for the 2001 tax return.
Does “Individuals” include people who make under $250,000 a year?
Hah. Most people will put it into savings. It worked in 2001 because people weren’t worried we were going into the shitter. Now, not so much.
Take your refund check, buy canned food and ammunition.
@Nemesis_Enforcer: Exactly. People will survive anyway they can.
@complexicated: You’re probably 100% on the nose about that lady. I’m trying to talk my wife into revamping her withholding for the exact same reason.
@EtherealStrife: I’m afraid your right about spending. Of course now both parties have turned to the big social services camp, which taken as a whole, have been the biggest expense on the federal budget for years.
I don’t know why Bush didn’t impress upon the Republican congress to make the tax cuts permanent. Want to REALLY stimulate the economy? Let those who make the money keep more of it instead of draining it off in taxes. Also, to those of you who keep repeating this mantra of raising taxes on the rich, when is the last time you’ve seen a poor person give someone a job? Most of the top 1 or 5 percent of income earners are owners of their own companies (approx 80% of all jobs in the US are in companies with less than 100 people). When you raise taxes on that crowd, it increases their cost of doing business…which means they can’t hire as many people or start looking for ways of off shoring their labor because of our burdensome tax code.
@TechnoDestructo: I was thinking an e-bike, gun, and a safe deposit box filled with bottled water and emergency rations.
@EtherealStrife: bigger defense or bigger social services? How is that even a choice? Either we provide services for our citizens, or we go tear other countries up in the name of forced “enlightenment?”
Bush is horse’s ass, and I want to know who of y’all voted for him. Nobody will ever ADMIT to it, but somebody did it, and I have a fresh can of whoopass here. Say what you want, but he’s done an awful lot to run this country straight into the ground.
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Democrats could get on board with an income tax rebate if it’s fully refundable, meaning that everyone with earned income would get the full rebate, even if they didn’t make enough money to owe income tax, said Furman.
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Oh good. Income tax rebates for the freeloaders who don’t actually pay income taxes.
Or, as they are more commonly known, the core Democrat voting base.
@Mojosan: they’re not freeloaders, they’re brokeasses with kids.
@Mojosan:
Yeah, we’re freeloaders — the unemployed, the students, the elderly. We’re just loving the lifestyle that comes from making around $8,000/yr. Come join us sometime.
We pay a shit ton of our income in sales taxes, gas taxes, and state and local income taxes. I don’t, but poor people pay the majority of sin taxes (alcohol and tobacco) as well.
Not everyone who doesn’t pay (or pays very little) federal income tax is a crack-smoking baby factory that does nothing but collect a monthly check. In fact, those days are over after Clinton signed welfare reform. The average person at the bottom end of the income spectrum is someone who wants to work hard to improve themselves but is having a rotten go.
Weazel – that’s the amount we owe the Feds on taxes this year too. What are they smoking?
@nequam: That is the point, though. Its not like this stimulus package HAS to be a federal income tax rebate. It could just as easily been structured differently to be inclusive of lower-income families and individuals. It wasn’t, and the silly “the poor don’t pay taxes” excuse was used as a justification. The excuse only works if this is the only way to provide economic stimulus or tax relief. Its not.
@Daniel-Bham: Okay, three things. 1, its called the “Democratic Party” not the “Democrat” Party. But you probably knew you were using a right-wing insult, didn’t you. Because, 2, Democrats have been the party of fiscal responsibility for some time, now. I think you’ll find that the President who didn’t deficient spend was a Democrat and not a Republican. It was done not through slash and burn spending cuts, but spending money efficiently and wisely. Oh, and 3, the arts are darn well important. Forgetting the important role government has long played as a patron of culture. Forgetting the reality that overwhelmingly the arts are already funded privately and the government’s role is filling in the gaps and encouraging upstart cultural organizations. Arts has an enormous impact on our economy. I know in my part of the country, arts brings more money to the economy than our numerous major sports teams, with far less governmental support than those sports teams get. So, good for our culture and good for our economy and we don’t even spend much on it to begin with. Killing arts funding is ironically just political theatre. Its saves little while dealing major harm to an important segment of our economy. Arts spending is a very good investment.
In reflecting on the comments about the poor in relation to the EIC and how they are freeloaders, I must ask a few questions. When your fat ass is standing in line at the grocery, who is ringing up your sale for you? When you put your fricking trash in the dumpster, who is the guy who collects it? Do you want these shitty jobs? I would suspect not, but these jobs along with countless others will qualify you to receive the EIC, because you will be making peanuts. All of this shit you have written about poor people sickens me. Have you ever been poor or had a hard time feeding your kids even though you work sixty hours a week? I hope one day you get a chance to feel it, and I think GDUBBYA is sending you in the right direction for that! *sticks up middle finger, pulls down pants and moons you*
@BStu: Bravo, well said! When will these fat rich cows quit dogging the poor. When will they stop thinking they can throw us their scraps? The working poor are the backbone of this country and any logical person knows that the services provided by the poor will never be done by the rich. They can’t mess up their manicures, oh and the manicurist probably qualifies for EIC! Oh, meeegosh!
Screw the $1600 I could get, Bush needs to give us a $2 off per gallon of gas.
@youbastid: I happen to have an enormous trade deficit with Kroger (when I’m not buying groceries at Walmart). Just like China, they keep taking my money and giving me stuff in return. But, Kroger never wants to buy anything from me — they never hire me to do anything. Maybe I should stop buying from Kroger until they agree that for every dollar I spend at their store, they will spend a dollar buying stuff from me.
In fact, my personal trade deficit with the rest of the world is huge. Maybe I should stop buying stuff from everybody else and grow my own food, make my own clothes, generate my own electricity and build my own house out of my own trees. However, if I did that, I would end up very poor. I’d probably starve to death.
I know it sounds absurd, but that’s effectively what protectionism promotes — it says “we have to do everything ourselves and keep all of our own money.” But, this ignores that wealth isn’t about green pieces of paper — it’s about turning labor into stuff. And, if I have to pay high prices because I’m unwilling to go to the people who can do things less expensively, I have less buying power and am thus poorer.
@cef21:
Kroger *does* buy stuff from *you*.
You did a very sly thing there. You took something about macroeconomics and made a microeconomic comparison. That’s a no-no if your goal is to foster rational, good-faith debate.
China doesn’t buy anything off of us because we make nothing China wants. Kroger does buy stuff off of us. They buy the labor of many American workers, and the products of American businesses.
No one really wants to buy much off of us, which is why our currency isn’t worth shit. Dollars are useless if you don’t want American goods and services. Comparatively, we’re seeing a growth in exports due to our horrid currency, which is the silver lining.
The proper comparison to make is as if China and America are two people. They keep selling us stuff, but we can’t sell our stuff to any of the other people (countries). If you were in business and you kept buying but had very few customers, you’d be out of business rather soon.
@poorwhitetrash: I have no problem with those receiving the EIC from getting the EIC. I know college students who receive the EIC because they work part time–so they end up paying no income taxes and receive a nice refund.
The problem I have is the posting that Dems want to give those who already qualify for the EIC (max amount over $4000) this max. $1600 rebate. That doesn’t seem fair at all as the money for this rebate is supposedly coming from those who pay in over a certain amount. Lower income families/folks already have a much better credit system.
@stinerman: So, let me get this straight: we keep giving China green pieces of paper and they give us stuff in return. Those green pieces of paper are really only good for one thing–you can take them to an American who will give you something in return. But, you’re telling me that China doesn’t want anything in return — they just like the green pieces of paper. Maybe they’re sewing it into underwear?
If they really don’t want anything in return, then China, collectively, is really stupid. In reality, though, those dollars we send to China will, eventually, be used to buy American products.
All sides benefit from trade. Sure, there are losers in each country (e.g., US textile workers who were no longer competitive) But, on the whole, each side is made better off from the exchange. It’s called Comparative Advantage.
Daniel-Bham: Yeah, we should totally just quit all federal funding for art-related stuff. It’s not essential. Give that money back to people because they’ll totally spend it on community improvement and supporting the arts in their community. Like for real. Why would any government want to subsidize anything? People will use their money to benefit their community without some government having to make them do it, right? The community would be better off if we didn’t have homeless shelters and welfare, too, because all those people would totally find jobs if they had to.
Ron Paul FTW!!
@cef21: Um, no…They take those “green pieces of paper,” turn them in to Chinese currency, then use it to buy shit that doesn’t come from America. Somehow you’re under the belief that the money we give them can only be used to buy from America?
Great, just more election year bullshit that isn’t going to fix anything longterm. Sure I’ll take the money, but it sure as heck ain’t going into buying crap that I don’t need. What might help a bit more is to stop pissing money away in the middle-east and spend some of those billions here instead.
@gingerCE: Excuse, I made a mistake. The maximum EIC is over $4000. So families of four who make under 35K will get a $4000 credit and they also want this $1600 credit? That doesn’t seem fair at all. A family of four who make 10K a year, would probably get close to the maximum 4K in EIC credit anyway.
Just to be clear a family of four making $35k only gets a whopping $1002 EIC not the $4k you are suggesting.
@youbastid: How exactly do you take US currency and “turn it into” chinese currency? You need somebody who has yuan and is willing to trade it for US currency. In China, that happens to be the Chinese government, but it’s typically a bank.
In general, when you buy something from a European country, they want to be paid in euros; the Japanese want to be paid in yen. After all, they need euros or yen to pay their employees or their suppliers. If they’re not paid in that currency, then, again, they have to find a bank willing to buy dollars and sell them yen or euros.
Those banks are only going to buy dollars if they think that they’ll be useful for something in the future. And, the only way they can be used is by buying from countries who use the US dollar. Mainly, that’s the US.
So, yes, US dollars are generally only useful for buying stuff from America.
@holocron: and a tax credit for charity work expenses so we can get the under/un insured treatment.
IF we get that alleged cash from Bush & Co, it’s going straight to my ER fund at ING.
Can they give us the money at tax time so we can use it to pay our tax bills? The irony would be delicious!