he fate of $600-$1,200 rebate checks for more than 100 million Americans is in limbo after Senate Democrats failed Wednesday to add $44 billion in help for the elderly, disabled veterans, the unemployed and big business to the House-passed economic aid package.
Republicans banded together to block the $205 billion plan from advancing Wednesday, leaving Democrats with a difficult choice either to quickly accept a House bill they have said is inadequate or risk being blamed for delaying a measure designed as a swift shot in the arm for the lagging economy.
And they should block every other attempt to get this “let them eat rebate checks” bill passed. Every single one.
Exit Question: On which side of this vote would John McCain have been?
UPDATE: Hmm…of the three US Senators running for President, guess who wasn’t there for the vote? I’ll give you a hint. His name rhymes with Blon McBlain.
Yeah! Screw those elderly, disabled veterans, and unemployed! What have they done for us lately?
John McCain would have been there if he was needed. Obviously we didn’t need his vote to stop the usual backdoor socialism attempt by the Democrats. Just like the post before mine is implying, Hill and Obama just want to be able to say that they stood up against the Big Bad Republicans who hate people, blah blah blah, etc. If you do not support socialist big government power grabs, it is simply because you enjoy people suffering. The democrats are masters of finding ‘victims’ to advance their agendas. By the way: McCain in ‘08!
Yeah +1! More tax cuts for the rich!!!! Keep that money out of the hands of those evil common people! Struggling people sux0rz!
Sure he would have Corey. Just like he was there on the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, right?
DS – Silly boy. Only people who pay taxes get tax rebates.
[...] The Sundries Shack notes that “this is how conservatives work.” [...]
lol @ “rebate”. No one’s getting a “rebate”, pal – you’re getting a loan on taxes you will eventually pay back anyway. The government doesn’t have cash to provide a rebate, so instead they’ll borrow the money from the Chinese or whoever else they can find, give it to you (whether you want it or not), then tax it back from you, plus interest, at a time and rate totally not of your choosing. Conservative economics – yeah!
Maybe smart people realize that the rebate checks aren’t such a great idea. How many economic policies Bush has pushed have worked? A better rebate policy would give no rebate to the top 50% while giving twice as much rebate to the bottom 50%. The reason? Well the top 50% is very likely to save that money while the bottom 50% will most likely put all of the money back into the economy right away. This is the point isn’t it? Lower income individuals are likely to already be behind and have a great tendency to spend quickly what many would see as free money. If they were savers they would probably be in a better position than they are. Or you could just trust Bush with your money and the economy. But that would be plain stupid, wouldn’t it?
Jimmy: regarding your comment to DS.
A lot of people who pay taxes (aka taxpayers) are struggling in this country. That’s why the Republicans are going to lose big in 2008. That long national nightmare of peace and prosperity under Clinton doesn’t look so horrible anymore.
P.S. Andrew is right. This economic stimulus will only work if people spend it, and the best way to guarantee that is to give it to people who need money to spend. I’m well off and I already own everything I want. I’m going to put my check in the bank, not the economy.
For the record, I think its a piss poor idea and should be blocked on that account, but if you think it’s worth passing, it would be better if it showered the largess on the poor and middle class rather than on everyone equally.
I am thoroughly indoctrinated, e-metered, and cleansed of my contaminated ideas, so I’m fit to comment. My question is: Where do I get the double knit, bell bottom uniforms.
Needless to say, I’m so overly thrilled and knocked out about last week and the inevitable un-election of some of the more notorious egg sucking dogs that are (were) currently occupying seats in the hallowed halls of Congress. Haven’t felt that great since I managed to successfully evade a sobriety check point and ditch the cops whilst embraced in the cellular congress with any number of psychotropic substances. And with the news that the Demos are taking over, I guess all of you Republican fiends are going to have to put your Nazi armbands back in the drawer until the next time America succumbs to mass stupidity. I can’t really get my cut-and-runner type mind around how fucking great it is that the Demos are going to stomp inbred conservative mouth-breather ass. Probably as great as I felt when Rummy got packed off to some Defense Department related circle jerk commonly referred to as a corporation. I suppose as everything closes in on chimp boy, he’ll start cutting loose all his scumbag buddies, similar to what Tricky Dickhead did. I imagine he’ll come on the T.V. and say that ole bend-over Bob isn’t in that great of health and that as Americans, we (that obviously doesn’t include those that were killed in Iraq) all should thank whatever loser he rescued off the local skid row for all those years of great service for this country. And so it will go until there’s nobody left to take the rap, at which point one of daddy’s lawyer friends will attempt to keep chimp boy out of jail. But fuck that, let’s all get our party hats and special “favors” in hand for the upcoming “Up Yours GOP” yearlong celebration that is the upcoming election. I mean, just listening to right-wing talk radio on the way to work is more entertaining than I thought it could ever be. You know the end is near when even Rush is attempting to heft his bloated rotting carcass toward an exit.
Hey Jimmie… are you going to hide in my hedges and check out what kind of countertops I have to make sure I really need that economic stimulus?
I know rich people think they are the only ones who pay taxes *sniff* – but this is exactly the attitude that will keep you guys out of office in 08.
I’m telling you you don’t need it. Neither do it.
You want that money? Have the Democrats cut your taxes 600 dollars and see what they say. It ought to be exactly the same, oughtn’t it? You should get the same about of stimulation from not having 600 dollars taken from you as if you had been given 600 dollars.
Or how about this? For two months, have the government grant a complete tax amnetsy. They would withhold no federal taxes from your check and reduce your taxes (so as not to penalize you later) by 1/6. Would that work as a stimulus? If not, why not?
As for your “rich people” comment, well, I don’t know what to say. There’s a ton of stupid in it.
hmmm… you are correct I don’t need the money, but there are a lot of people that do. And I don’t object to tax cuts when they are targeted at people who actually need the extra money. That was my point about rich people. See, when someone who already has, say 1 or 2 million or more in the bank gets a big tax break, they don’t feed it into the economy, they sock it away. Trickle down economics is a joke and it has been disproven over and over again, starting with Ronnie Rayguns and again with George Bush I and now again with George Bush II. The tax break I got from Georgie boy in 2002 was a joke… but for people making far less money than myself, $600 might mean they can fix their broken down car, or pay for groceries or heating without breaking the bank.
But I know… My comments are just stupid.
DS – Your contention about what rich people do when they get a tax cut is manifestly untrue. That’s why it’s difficult for me to take the rest of your comment seriously. Rich people dont’ “sock away” their money, they put it work work making them more money. They invest it, they spend it on really expensive stuff or lots of inexpensive stuff, or they put it back into their businesses. We want all of that to happen more, because every single one of those things is good for the economy (which makes it good for all of us individually, too).
That is a fact. It’s not something I just made up, nor is it a fiction of the wealthy. It is how economics works. Until you grab hold of that, no tax policy beyond “give away lots of money to poor people” is going to make any sense to you and you won’t have the foggiest notion why your idea is so amazingly bad.
“Rich people dont’ “sock away” their money, they put it work work making them more money. They invest it,”
Same damn thing. Investing money *is* “socking it away,” or haven’t you taken “Money 101?”
“because every single one of those things is good for the economy”
Sure, and Apples and Snickers bars are both “food.”
Give money to the rich, they “invest” it, good for the economy, right?
Except that’s not where it goes. Money “invested” in the stock market only goes into some other major shareholders pockets, or a market makers funds.
How much of that rich man’s money goes into small business startups? Penny on the dollar.
Don’t parrot the AEI claptrap. Money to rich people doesn’t “trickle down,” it goes down the crapper.
Joey, you have to be kidding me. There is no way, no way in the world, that you can know this little about economics and yet have such a strong opinion.
“The elderly, disabled veterans, the unemployed and big business”
hmmmmm….one of these things is not like the others….
How is that $44 billion gonna be divvied up? I wonder…
[Baleeted! - Jimmie]
Jimmie-
you keep claiming that we don’t know what we are talking about but do not address any of the individual points being made…
Just calling someone “stupid” or claiming they don’t know enough to have an opinion is like what my kids did when they were losing an argument when they were 4 years old.
Grow up a bit… Every time a democrat gets elected it’s to clean up after a republican “free market” mess.
DS – The reason I said you don’t know what you’re talking about is because you don’t know what you’re talking about. Your claim that the rich just stick their money in risk-free cubby holes when there’s a tax cut is so obviously wrong that it’s clear, at least to me, that we’re not even speaking the same economic language.
I don’t know how we can have a productive conversation when you make a claim that’s disproven by a couple or three hundred years of observation.
Really? Other than lining other investors pockets… how does more investing by the “investor class” or “well off” if you are offended by the term “rich”, help those of us without all that extra income to throw around? Please enlighten me… As far as i can tell the “thriving” “strong” economy that you guys keep touting has only enriched those at the top… please explain how the tax cuts in 2002 did anything to stimulate the economy for the majority of Americans.. not just those in the upper income brackets.
Investors simply don’t put money in the pockets of other investors. That’s not how it works. That’s not how it’s ever worked. You have this pesky little thing called an economy whereby money flows into it, through it, then back out of it again. It’s that middle part, where money invested in businesses go to pay salaries, buy new equipment, build new buildings, pay for compensation and benefits, benefits all of us.
That money also benefits every single person who has a retirement fund, as the increase in stocks increase the value of those funds.
This is basic stuff.