Stimulus: Pay bills? Get a flat-panel?

[kurth]

Stimulus: Pay bills? Get a flat-panel?
By ELLEN SIMON

NEW YORK - Is an extra $800 in your pocket enough to change the course of the ailing economy? President Bush, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and members of Congress seem to think so. Washington is talking about issuing tax rebate checks in hopes of staving off a recession. And people around the country, many of them struggling to pay bills, staggering under credit card debt or worried about their financial futures, aren't about to turn them down.

"I would probably take that money and breathe a sigh of relief for one month," said Jennifer Simon, who works at a small communications firm in Long Valley, N.J., and spends $1,500 a month on child care. "It's not a permanent fix," she said, "but I wouldn't send it back."

Taxpayers got smaller rebates, $300 per person, under a similar plan in 2001. There is debate in economic circles -- as usual -- about whether those checks warded off recession or went straight from the U.S. Treasury into Americans' savings accounts.

This time around, while some people may put the rebate toward a big-ticket item like a flat-screen TV, many echo Ginger Scott, a home-health physical therapy worker in Kansas City, Mo. She says she wouldn't buy anything exciting. "I think I had too much exciting previously," said Scott, 52. "Exciting will kill your budget." Instead, she said she'd pay off a credit card bill and save what's left over...

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8U8KOT80.htm

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More money for the banks and the sweatshops in China.

[madeline_con]

1. "UP TO" $800 I vote for the new TV

[sandnsea]

2. If you don't earn enough to pay taxes

You won't get any of this money back, or advanced.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

3. Please note:

Long Valley NJ is a high-ticket community that is stiff with well-to-do people living beyond their means. Because of the typical population of disaffected youth that tend to be found in such areas, it was, in the late 90's, a hotbed of Heroin dealing and abuse. The police in the area considered it to be the source of all the heroin in the area, and there was a lot. One 15 year old kid was busted with an ounce of 93% pure China White. Didn't make a dent in nothin'.

Needless to say, it's stiff with whiny repukes. Most of Morris County is. They would vote for a healthy shit, if it ran on the repuke line and had "Cut taxes and repeal The Highlands Act" carved into it with a stick.

[orleans]

4. i'm trying to not spend money. it's hard -- price of coffee just went up.

and i live on coffee. mostly.

[SoCalDem]

5. How to really stimulate the economy?

$20K to every 21& up person..TAX FREE..(must earn less than $150K a year..

People would pay off debts... buy cars..pay for college, buy appliances..

Imagine a couple earning 35K a year..40K tax free would change their lives..

or a 22 yr old`graduating from college..

My guess is that it probably would end up costing about what the BS program *² is proposing..

[HCE SuiGeneris]

8. You have my vote!

Since we are indebted already to the tune of 35K or so already to feed the opportunists/elite profiting from this little "war on terror"... Do you think we can get passage?

All kidding aside, great idea.

[Adsos Letter]

6. If only they had distributed all that cash they *lost* in Iraq...

here at home...how much different would things look...

[scarletwoman]

7. Tell ya what. If I get an unexpected $800, it's going straight into my savings account.

What kind of fucked up system depends on people buying shit they don't really need, in order to function?

Fuck 'em. If I get a check from the government you best believe I'm socking it away, so I'll have a bit of a cushion for when it ALL comes crashing down.

sw