Smarting from its continued failure to check the expansive growth of the unitary executive, the Senate has decided to assert itself by derailing an agreed upon economic stimulus plan. Senate leaders are now insisting that the stimulus plan contain an extra $25 billion to fund road work, tax cuts, and extend unemployment insurance.
Baucus, 66, said he opposes House provisions restricting tax rebates to those who earned $3,000 last year. He said in an interview he prefers sending smaller checks to more people, as many as 30 million additional Americans, who would not meet that income threshold. “Rebate checks should go to all Americans under that income limit,” Baucus said.
Other senators said they wanted to contribute their own provisions. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said the House proposal’s $150 billion price tag wouldn’t be viewed as a “magical figure.” Baucus said the package may grow to as much as $175 billion as lawmakers add money for programs benefiting low-income Americans along with tax breaks aimed at helping unprofitable companies.
“It may be a little bit more, but not a lot,” Baucus said when asked about the plan’s potential price tag. “Something close to 150, 175.”
Reid, 68, said members of the Finance Committee “and other senators will work to improve the House package by adding funds for other initiatives that can boost the economy immediately, such as unemployment benefits, nutrition assistance, state relief and infrastructure investment.”
Fellas, economic stimulus plans are time sensitive. The Treasury can’t issue rebate checks until two months after you invoke cloture and send your Christmas Tree of a bill to the White House.
Nobody knows when the stimulus plan will pass, but the State of the Union is on Monday. Don’t be surprised if the President interrupts his speech to chuck the mace at Harry Reid.
Senate May Scuttle Bush-Backed House Plan on Stimulus [Bloomberg]
PREVIOUSLY: Economic Stimulus Plan Passes
(Photo: Getty Images)
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I’m a taxpayer and voter. Send money quick.
It doesn’t force the debt on to anyone.. except the people who get the checks since we have to pay it back when we file next year.
@Carey: Hmm, I noticed you on my list of followers; I’m flattered. Well, I clicked to see who you were and I am pleasantly surprised for it. This is my first visit and comment on Consumerist and I’m liking it.
Anyway, my husband and I were discussing the tax relief plan earlier today and I have a question for you. The government hopes we put the money into consumer circulation as it were, but I’d like to pay off some debt. The debt I am thinking of is college debt on a credit card; it’s not a huge amount. Relieving some of this debt could turn into us charging goods or services on our card. This in turn gives money towards (possibly struggling) banks. What is your opinion of this?
P.S. I work in manufacturing and the budget cuts are killing us. (Flour prices, oh boy..) A quick summation is too much trimming results in more frequent, and worse, errors and a high cost of corrective actions or repetitive work.
I think infrastructure repairs are several magnitudes more important than putting a Wii in everyones living room.
I really don’t see how giving people a $600 check to buy things made
in other countries will stimulate this country’s economy. It will buy a
lot of votes, though.
Is there a way to send the rebate back if I don’t want it? My taxes are complicated enough without this bullshit.
@djanes1: Exactly. Much like that famous Bush line about showing our patriotism by going out and shopping. The plan is a load of crap, and should die.
I think its stupid that the dummycrats want to give more money back to people who don’t pay taxes. If your not paying any taxes you shouldn’t get a dime of this rebate money. If you don’t pay to begin with, its not a rebate, its a gift, that comes out of me and other tax payer’s pockets.
The government sucks a big, fat percentage of my paycheck out every time. I have zero sympathy for people who don’t have to pay any taxes not getting a portion of this rebate. Start paying taxes, than you get the right to get some money back.
@darkjedi26: hear, hear. Tax ID numbers-ugh
@BStu:
Well said. I’m glad somebody understands that “fast response” is not equivalent to “good response” the current situation.
The people complaining about the delay, it appears, largely fail to appreciate how bad this “stimulus” package was. I’m pleasantly surprised that the Senate did something.
Estimated approval date: Never.
If approved, estimated benefits: Minimal.
Thank you government for never getting anything done.
Is it any wonder that Congress has a lower approval rate than Bush?
@StevieZ83:
Democrats are certainly NOT the only people adding crap to bills.
I’m for barring all riders. A bill should pass or fail on its own merits. You want to pay for a $5 billion highway that leads into the middle of the Atlantic or extended unemployment benefits, you can draft your own damn bill.
These people barely do any work at all, ever. I can’t choose to not show up to work whenever I want, why do we still allow our representatives to just not show up for voting and sessions? I think forcing them to draft their own legislation instead of tacking legislation onto other legislation might force them to show up for work once in a while.
@darkjedi26:
I don’t understand that, either. I’m still *slightly* more concerned about the people who make millions complaining about taxes, though. If someone was paying me $1 million/year, the government could take half of it and you wouldn’t see me complaining.
The rebate to individuals and families predictably will not have much “stimulus” effect. People will either use it to pay the last mortgage bill that got behind, or bank it because of the jitteryness about the future state of the economy and jobs.
But the effect of the bonus depreciation on businesses will help a lot.
The senate will rush this bill through. They won’t back out of an effective promise to give most families $1,200.
these lice will still get their wonderful pensions for doing a couple of years of ‘work’?
Okay,take a deep breath you people…Exhale…
The reality is,there is going to be an election in November.This thing has gone too far,too fast for the blow dried phonies in the senate to de rail it.There will be some kind of deal because every incumbent running for re election wants some cupcakes for the folks back home.A LOT of people that I know have already “spent” this money mentally and they will be grouchy if it never arrives.The fact is,there are a few blow hards in the upper chamber that know that they can hold this thing hostage until they get their indefensible “bridges to nowhere” or what have you. (The “infrastructure investments” that HR hinted at) They want it to pass,but this just gives them a way to squeeze that last pet project out of the taxpayers before the next budget cycle. Democracy ? Of a sort.These people are a perfect mirror image of the people that sent them there.
@gingerCE:
You didn’t read the article but comment on it!
You must be a right wing Republican.
Take a trip through Chicago where I live, go through some poor neighborhoods.
There isn’t a real grocery store in them!
Lots of crummy convenience stores, rarely is there any fresh meat or produce in them! The closest thing to fresh is white bread! At least it’s fortified with vitamins, but only because the law requires it. Mostly overpriced canned crap, full of sodium that worsens high blood pressure.
They’ve been totally abandoned by the big grocers!
But there’s a hell of a lot of McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s, White Castle, KFC, Church’s Chicken & Popeye’s. All full of delicious, fattening & definitely unhealthy food!
Also there are numerous independent greasy spoon types.
Not to mention the huge number of liquor stores!
To get to a real grocery, it might take three blocks!
There’s only one Costco in Chicago, nearest bus stop is a long block away, try doing that with a big load of food!
The poor live a totally different life than the rest of us when it comes to food shopping!
As for food stamps, I believe a single person will get about $135 a month, but I’m not sure as the amount decreases as income increases!
@Greasy Thumb Guzik:
Oops, brain freeze! I meant it might take three buses to get to a real grocery store!
@Greasy Thumb Guzik: Hi–I tried to read the article but it didn’t make sense to me. I am not a Rep or a Dem–I am an Independent–but I have never voted for a Rep. president or a Rep senator–always Dem or yes, Green party. I currently volunteer with low income seniors in my community. And I have volunteered for food banks and feeding the homeless in the past.
I think food stamps is a valuable program, but a food bank can give a family for free packages that include healthy food vs. letting them go into a store and buy junk food. It does sound like that’d be a better program in your area because there doesn’t sound like there are enough grocery stores around and too many people are buying fast food.
If this thing derails though, I will blame the Democrats because they are the ones adding the fat to this bill and they need to simply leave it the way it was intended–as a tax rebate. Pelosi did a good job in bargaining and they should congratulate her and move on.
FAT?? Adding fat to the bill? Issuing this package with the rebates but no extension to unemployment is unconscionable. It will take 2-4 months to get these rebates checks mailed. Unemployment can be started in a week. This extension is for people who have been unemployed for 1/2 a year and can not yet find work.
Sounds to me like the Democrats are making a two-pronged political gambit. If the modified bill passes, they get to brag about how they delivered for their constituents. If not, they can easily pass the original version while accusing Republicans of being uncaring obstructionists. The presidency isn’t our only election this November.
It seems like they’re throwing some stuff they want to see passed onto this bill because it’s getting a lot of attention.
If Bush doesn’t sign it into a law after they add new provisions to it, the President might be seen as the stubborn politician that doesn’t want to compromise to help the people.
He’ll probably veto it, though. He vetoes anything that isn’t exactly to his liking without giving it a second thought.
@gingerCE:
The Salon article doesn’t make sense to you?
Here’s the real simple explanation of it:
Poor neighborhoods with lots of food stamp recipients: No large grocers & numerous fast food joints = High food prices, poor selection, little fresh produce & lots of filling but fattening foods which cause or worsen obesity & other health problems!
Middle class or better neighborhoods & suburbs with few food stamp recipients: Lots of large grocers, lots of competition, lower food prices, huge selection of fresh produce = healthier people.
Stimulus packages like this are like cutting your self to feel alive. If your broken and bloody like our country is, making a small cut might cause a short term adrenalin rush (similar to the short term spending this will increase) but long term, it wont do much.
@Greasy Thumb Guzik:
Sorry,help me here.
Fast food is not known for being healthy.Ditto filling but fattening foods.Can the poor read ? Reason ? Do they not know what this crap is doing to them ? Can they not be told ? You sound like you’re not happy that the “Big Grocers” have “abandoned” them. But you have left out the fact that Wally World basically had to fight tooth and nail to be able to put a store in ChiTown.(It opened in 2006,I believe). Who opposed this ? “Community Activists” and others that want to preserve “Mom and Pop” grocery stores. You also seem chapped that there are more liquor stores than grocery stores in these neighborhoods.I’ll grant you that.But I’ll wager that the people that go into these liquor stores do so voluntarily.They piss their money away getting drunk and then they blame “the man” “Right wing Republicans” or whatever for their plight. I grew up poor. I know what it’s like. But we never accepted that as a permanent condition. My folks made us study. They made us work.Now we’re not poor any more. And the money that gets mailed to these people comes directly from that hard work.The food stamps that they spend are a gift from producers of goods and services to consumers of same.
@Greasy Thumb Guzik: It’s cheaper to cook food at home. Period. Plus, I didn’t know fast food places took food stamps. If so, they need to stop that practice as I totally agree that is wrong. But instead of food stamps, the govt. should fund a food bank which would give out healthy food to residents–not giving them choice but forcing them to eat healthy. If you give them more food stamps it sounds like they’d use it to buy more fast food–which would defeat the whole purpose.
I have lived in a major city without a car and used to take the bus to go grocery shopping–there was no major grocery store in my village. I was able to carry all my groceries for the week by myself. I recently visited a major city (taking the bus to get around town as I didn’t want to drive) and saw numerous elderly people schlepping bags filled with groceries. If the elderly can do it, I’m not sure why younger people can’t.
Cool.
The Dems in the Senate are stumbling over themselves to completely screw the pooch. The Republicans will try to get the original bill passed, and Baucus will keep trying to pee in the soup until nothing happens.
No more money will get spent ( a good thing ), but the Democrats will get ALL of the blame for the checks not going out. Fail!
The Republicans will get credit for trying to give everyone free money, without having to actually do it. Win!
Well just damn, someone actually does have some sense in Congress and has decided that people should only be getting TAX rebate checks if they actually had an income to TAX to begin with. Of course leave it to a Democrat to think that this is a bad thing. They are the party of income redistribution (ie., vote buying) and can’t resist de-railing any kind of legislation that doesn’t include giving money away to people who have no real income or don’t pay any INCOME taxes in the first place.
However, I (and I imagine the financial markets) would have been much happier with a plan that would have made the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanent.
Bush rides to the rescue of the speculators who drove up the cost of housing and listened to those silly infomercials about earning money by buying houses with no money down.
I knew this was too good to be true when I first read about it. Yet I still told the logic part of my brain to shut-up and subsequently decided what I would spend my rebate check on.
@ShortBus: They have to borrow money from us (or possibly the People’s Republic of China) to give us our stimulus checks. I’m glad it’s dying.
@kbarrett: It doesn’t matter which party. No such thing as free money. It came from someone.
It’s funny how Republicans constantly talk about how Democrats are big government and spend crazy and that Republicans are small government and thrifty. I guess it depends on what your definition of “big government” and “spend crazy” are, because as far as I can tell, Democrats are big government in that they spend money on programs that actually help people better their lives and become more productive members of society. Republicans are big government in that they will spend a lot of money on the controlling aspects of society, such as more police, more security, more prisons, more lockdowns, and war. The Republican government projects end up being bigger and costlier, with little or no benefit to the average American. Democrats version of big brother is like your older brother; he’ll steal your money, but he’ll also get you drunk and laid when you’re 16. Republicans are like big brother from 1984; he’ll steal your money, beat the shit out of you, and then jail you when you complain.
@snarkysnake:
No, actually the poor don’t know what the crap is doing to them!
And many of them can’t read!
Their lives are a mess! They spend their money on all sorts of useless shit.
Do you know where the most billboard spending by the Illinois State Lottery is?
It’s in poor areas, they spend the most on the lottery!
Do you know where the most billboard spending on tobacco & liquor is?
Same answer!
The poor are fucked up & big business is a big part of it.
As for Wal-Mart’s attempts to open stores in Chicago, it’s a lot more complicated than you put it. Most of it revolves around tribal politics in Chicago, which the thieves from Arkansas don’t know how to play.
@gingerCE:
What major city did you live in?
You try to carry food for an entire family on an overcrowded Chicago bus.
You need to live in the real world.
No, fast food places don’t take food stamps, but the minimarts & liquor stores that carry a few food items do.
And those places charge a huge amount for small amounts of crappy food!
Most closures of food stores in Chicago are of this type!
“Timely?” My ass it’s timely!
It’s time to stop running up our balances on our Chinese debt, which giving everybody hundred of dollars to spend on cheap crap made in China will not do.
It doesn’t list Hamburgers or Liquor on this list, so it sounds like food stamps probably do the job they’re supposed to, although they should make a point to include more real food, as opposed to packaged and processed shite.
@barty: wtf? Medicare part D (the prescription-drug benefit) was vote-buying at its finest, and that was a REPUBLICAN initiative. And guess what, most elderly people who rely on Medicare probably don’t have much taxable income, either. Both parties try to buy votes; the GOP just happens to pay more attention to which demographics actually do vote.
@Greasy Thumb’s excellent thread.
Absolutely. I’m glad that the first thing a poor person does when they graduate from a ghetto is explain that since they did it, everyone can do it. When, if they’d spend any time thinking about what goes on in a ghetto, they’d see that not everyone is going to make it out.
Ghettos, like the one I live right near in Richmond, California, have either Mom and Pop convenience stores or second-tier grocery outlets. The people who shop there are a lot of single parents who are rather busier than even the soccer-moms, who use loads of convenience foods already because they’re so busy riding herd on their children. Or else they’re doing underpaid, underclass jobs that last 10 or 12 hours a day and have just enough time to pick up something fast on the way home.
You can live on $30 a week or whatever it is, but you’ll need some time to prepare that food, and between hard work, commuting (oops, they cut another bus line because of the budget shortfall) and picking up your kids
because it’s not safe for them to walk home…well, it doesn’t leave a lot of time for food preparation. And did I miss a detail here, or was someone implying that the poor spend their food stamps at McDonald’s? Try that and see what happens.
And people wonder why Obama is trouncing Hillary. At least the man knows what goes on inside a ghetto.
Figures…trying to give money back to taxpayers, then you get Senators wanting it to go to people on welfare and disability rather than hard working people actually paying taxes. Then the rest feel like sticking their pork projects into the bill….
@Saboth:
Everyone pays taxes!
It’s inescapable!
Even those on welfare & food stamps pay taxes when they buy stuff.
Either they are directly paying sales taxes or they’re paying indirectly by the taxes paid by the companies & their employees when that product is purchased.
Printing more money will not solve the over-inflated economy issue we are experiencing.
More rebates to families that earned less than $3k? What the hell?!? Getting welfare month after month is not a job, it’s taking my tax dollars and feeding too many lazy Americans. Not that welfare started off bad, and the intention as being a safety net is commendable, but WAY too many millions of people take gross advantage of the system. I’m still in college, in debt up to my ears and live on my own, yet I have made in this first month of 2008 more than $3k.
Senators are going to ruin this bill “by adding funds for other initiatives that can boost the economy immediately, such as unemployment benefits, nutrition assistance, state relief and infrastructure investment”, but this not stimulate the economy, it will just dump more money into programs that waste American Taxpayer’s hard-earned cash.
If the government wants to stimulate the economy, give taxpayers back their money and they’ll find something to spend it on, don’t try to spend it for them!
To the person…Jedi guy… who commented on those who do not pay taxes should not get a rebate…most of those individuals/20 million seniors have paid almost 50 years of taxes and are over 65 years old. The government does not give a whopping sum each month to these individuals in the form of Social Security checks. According to the government, they do not HAVE to pay taxes (why? because they don’t have even enough to live on)…and YES I think they should get a rebate. Why should they be penalized for working all those years (for you)and living off of nothing in their senior years. Wait until it is your turn Jedi guy.
@Greasy Thumb Guzik: If you lived in New York, I would buy you a drink/coffee.