- ‹ previous
- 2913 of 7911
- next ›
Taking a Look at Bush's Economic Stimulus
In case you haven't noticed, things aren't going terribly well on the worldwide financial markets. President Bush isn't insensitive to that fact—that's why, a few days ago his administration announced the rough outlines of an economic stimulus plan. And it is going to help everyday folks, not just big business. Tax credits will flow like manna from heaven: $800 for individuals and $1,600 for married couples are the most commonly cited figures (more on that below). "Letting Americans keep more of their money should increase consumer spending," the president said.
Oh, but wait. The Tax Policy Center, a joint effort of the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, did an analysis of Bush's plan and found that a number of people (and by "a number of people" I mean millions of people) would be shortchanged. And the poor were the most likely to get the short end of the stick.
According to TPC's analysis, 56 million people would get nothing and another 21 million would get less than the promised $800/$1,600. Bush's stimulus plan only helps earners (as though the unemployed don't need help right about now), but even there it's not so hot. Thirty million earners get nothing, and another 19 million get less than $800/$1,600. That means 49 million working households would get nothing or only a partial rebate.
All of this, plus the rapidly worsening economic news, has forced the White House to admit today that it is open to a larger stimulus package. The hope, however, is that the package is not only larger, but more fairly and evenly spread.
Further criticism after the jump.
From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:
The plan is being described as featuring a rebate of $800 to individuals and $1,600 to couples. That, however, is misleading. Only tax filers with incomes high enough to be in the 15 percent tax bracket or a higher bracket could get those amounts. As a result, fewer than half of all households — and fewer than 60 percent of all working households — would qualify for the full rebate.
Households that earn too little to be in the 10 percent bracket would get nothing. The fact that many of these households pay large amounts of payroll tax would be ignored. Families of four making less than $24,900 would be shut out entirely. The Tax Policy Center data show that 30 million working households would receive nothing.
All households in the 10 percent bracket — families of four with incomes between $24,900 and $40,950, and many families somewhat above that range as well — would get only a partial rebate. Some 19 million working households would receive a partial rebate. Overall, 42 percent of working households would receive either no rebate or a partial one.
It's a real shame that middle class and working class families aren't going to get a piece of the pie under the Bush stimulus plan, because (1) they need the help the most, and (2) they stimulate the economy best. As Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress, "If you're somebody who has lots of financial assets and you receive an extra dollar, you may not change your spending much because you can simply either put the dollar in your bank account or take out a dollar as you need it. If you're somebody who lives paycheck to paycheck, you're more likely to spend that extra dollar."
Update: If you can't get enough of this sort of analysis, you can find more here.
Digg
Reddit
Twitter
Facebook
Buzz Up!
StumbleUpon
MySpace
LinkedIn
Delicious
Furl
Google
Yahoo
Ever notice when debating taxes with Republicans that they think the income tax is the only tax, and those too poor to pay income taxes are getting some sort of free ride.
Better to do nothing.
This is just more fake paper fiat currency.
I suspect GWB doesn't really care- kissing Israeli and Saudi butts seems more important than his own back yard. What with the New Orleans debacle and sub-prime etc., is there an agenda going on here? With friends like Dubya, who needs enemies?
Just more of Bush's idea of fiscal responsibility (for which he continually chides the Democratic congress). Raid the federal coffers to provide more help to those who need it the least, and little or none to those lowly maggots who need it the most.
I'd much rather see him do something that would actually help to create decent jobs here in the US, and to at least ease the escalating burden on the working class somewhat.
More tax cuts that disproportionately help the rich.Cutting interest rates again to make credit cheap and easy.Weren't these brilliant ideas already tried and failed leading to multiple burst economic bubbles within a few years of each other.I wonder how this will be spun to be the Democrats fault even though the Republicans have been the majority in power between the Presidency, Congress, and Senate in one way or another for more than a solid generation now?
The president's plan is no surprise. It is consistent with his plans for health care, war, etc. - benefit the rich and powerful and the devil with the rest of us!
US aid to Israel is $500 per year for each Israeli. That's each and every year and the current plan goes out for 10 years. For the next 10 years US aid to each Israeli will be $5,000. Some American taxpayers whose taxes pay for the Israeli's $5,000 in aid is being considered to get Aid from the government of a one time payment of $600. No one complains while the thievery, insults and abuses by the Bush administration continues.
In the LA Times bidness section this morning, they captured a quote from our douche-bag-in-chief, about his new advisory board and how they will impress upon the people how important it is to save money. (Gee, I wonder what their salaries will be? Will they get benefits? Perhaps a health insurance plan for life, like those in Congress?) Anyway, this coming from a dullard that has been a family passenger and done nothing but listen to his momma tell him that he is a member of the entitled elite, and his only job is to remain breathing and inherit money.
Why does anyone think this man (and I lose the term loosely), has a worthy opinion, or even knows what he is doing and saying?
This year cannot be over fast enough.
Call it Trickle-down economics, or Reaganomics, or voodoo economics, call it whatever you like it doesn't work. It didn't work in the 1980's and it's not working now. Excuse me, but weren't Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans supposed to create jobs and stimulate the economy? Making the rich richer has never created jobs, unless Daddy Warbucks hires somebody to wash the Winnebago. Without a strong middle class, who buys the products? The answer should be a no-brainer so you'd think the current administration could figure it out.
Good point(s) MacDuck...but the only thing this administration has proven over the last 7 years, is that it can't find its butt with both hands.
I need to do some digging, but of all these alleged millions of jobs the Cheney/Shrub cartel has boasted about creating; wonder how many are at minimum wage and with virtually no benefits? All of them? 50%? Where is the trickle down in that?
The 1 year anniversary of the passing of Molly Ivins will be on 1/31. Turns out Molly was right about every blessed thing with these guys. I truly miss her words.
Hmmm...how many new jobs could we create with that same money if we dedicated it to modernizing and re-building our crumbling bridges and highways? Or to building new, clean light rail or subway systems in cities that desperately need them?
We does this tax money come from? The current gov't spending policies have increased our national debt into the trillions. China is floating most of our debt. So where does this 'mana from heaven' come from? More debt. Who pays the debt? The wealthy? They get tax breaks. Large companies? They get gov't welfare and tax breaks. Who pays? We do. So if we will have to pay for this tax break ourselves. And the added bonus is that we have to pay taxes on our tax break in 2009! Once again we are being handed a greater share of the tax burden. As stated above trickle down economics is just a way to state shifting the tax burden and the costs of society to the people away from the American aristocracy. Which creates a lovely investment climate for foriegn investors. Nothing says invest in a country that consistently dupes its populace into paying for more and more of the social structure opening more money for returns on investment(shift of control of capital).
Sorry for the broken sentences. I upset myself thinking about how we get duped by the wealthy owners of our nation. :)
All you dumb a$$es out there-remember what bush has done and GO OUT & VOTE for somebody competent, instead of bit*hing about it...
I don't understand how ginving money to the people that don't need it is going to help the economy?
To share the words of a poster on another web page, it ain't a tax cut - it's a tax deferral. Somebody will have to pay taxes to cover the interest on the borrowed money and the principal payback some day!
"Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages."
~ H. L. Mencken
Is my memory faulty, or am I right? The last "rebate" was paid back in full when you filed your taxes for the "rebate" year. In other words, we received a loan from our tax "refunds," not a rebate at all. It was a complete fraud.
Do people with children truly love them?
The response by many would be, I want to keep them safe.
Me thinks the bigger terrorist is the former generation who spent trillion$, cause they wanted "Tax Cuts", and stick them with the bill.
only in america does our leader slap you and your family in the face, when you can not even catch up, we are slaped in the face with a stupid ass rebate for the rich and all our leaders with a tax rebate our government once again is pissing in the wind the poor better duck.
["This is just more fake paper fiat currency."]
Learned something from Ron Paul, have we?
I am grateful for an extra $600 whether it's used for buying a treat or paying a bill. To save a few bucks on my meds I got a prescription discount card at www.rxdrugcard.com. Low membership fee. Drug prices posted. Every little bit helps!
Stimulus Package "Deja vu", Not really!
As the brains of our economy continue to brainstorm how to get us out of the mess the real estate market first got us in and now high gas prices and a declining economy over all the easy way out seems to be again, an economic stimulus package.
Not so fast, not again.
First president bush opposes it.
Second, according to the experts only 20 percent of the people who got stimulus package number one said the rebate led them to spend more and the rest, well it seems that the rest just took the money and put it into their savings account.
Economic stimulus package number one was suppose to get our slow economy going, by then president bush had not heard of a 4 dollar a gallon of gasoline.
By now that's old news and as he put it on he's own words "he's heard of it now".
Well now mr president one gallon of gas almost hits the 5 dollar mark, have you heard of it?
Anyhow, the 100 billion dollars in checks that circulated among many Americans (600.00 for singles, 1,200.00 for couples) apparently didn't help.
The money went out on time and gas prices went up just on time as well.
With gas prices, food prices also went up.
Isn't that how it usually works?
Gas prices go up everything goes up, after all business have to make up for the extra expenses and they just pass the check onto us.
Here's an idea!
How about lowering the tax on gasoline?
Do we really know how much money we pay on gas taxes in the u.s?
Aren't this taxes imposed by our government, well maybe our government can really give a stimulus to our morale and lower the taxes we pay on gas prices.
A lower tax in gasoline prices will stimulate business and consumers, it's not rocket science!
Source for this quote: Wikipedia
"Fuel taxes in the United States vary by state. For the first quarter of 2008, the average state gasoline tax is 28.6 cents per US gallon, plus 18.4 cents per US gallon federal tax making the total 47 cents per US gallon"