U.S. Government Call Latest Handout a Rebate
Big Dog at Big Dog's Weblog on Jan 25 2008 at 9:46 pm | Filed under: Politicians at Work
The economy is in a downturn right now with some saying we are headed for or in a recession and others saying that things will be better by the third quarter of the year. The White House and Congress have drafted a plan to stimulate the economy, a package that has rare bipartisan support. The problem with the package is that it is a redistribution of wealth.
The plan calls for rebate checks for people who did not earn enough money to pay income taxes and caps the rebates at income levels of $75,000 for single taxpayers and $150,000 for married taxpayers. The rebates completely phase out at $87,000 and $174,000 respectively. The word rebate in this plan is misleading because a rebate is the return of something a person has paid. When one buys a camera with a rebate then part of what the person paid is sent back. If the economic plan were applied to the business world then one person would buy the camera and the company would send the rebate to a person who did not buy one.
The Democrats are not completely on board with the plan because it does not include more benefits (such as unemployment) along with the redistribution of wealth from those who pay the taxes to those who do not. In other words, they like it but feel it is has enough socialism built into it.
The government likes this plan because it will put money in the hands of people who are likely to spend it. If they gave the money back to the people who actually paid it then about 70% would be invested. Instead, the money will go to those who will run right out and spend it instead of putting some of it away for the future. The plan is short term as well as short sighted and since the government is slow with these kinds of things the money is likely to hit people’s hands about the time the economy starts to get better (depending on what economists one listens to). Additionally, this plan will do absolutely nothing to fix the part of the economy that is causing most of the problems, the housing crunch.
I know one thing that can end with this so called rebate and that is the mantra that our tax policies only help the rich. In this case, the rich are sending their money to the poor. There are some who will say that we are borrowing the money (which increases the deficit) so it is not coming from the rich. In reality, the government will have to get the money from some place and that place is from those who pay taxes.
If we want to stimulate the economy how about we cut taxes across the board so people will have more of their income to spend? How about we make other countries pay tariffs on the items they export to our country. How about we force our elected leaders to limit spending and force them to balance the budget? How about we force them to stop adding pork to bills and end the earmark practice? We could start drilling for our own oil and drive the costs down?
Of course these things are unlikely to happen because our elected officials are short sighted. The only reason they came up with this plan is because it is an election year and they all want to be able to say they helped the poor. While they like to pretend there are enough rich to tax into oblivion, they realize that the middle class and poor make up the lion’s share of our population. They will have far more votes than those who will foot the bill.
Socialism is the way of the left and they will certainly expand upon it should a Democrat be elected to the White House and the Republicans are so fragmented they are going along with it.
Sources:
Washington Post
The Politico
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