What in the world is a personal income tax rebate?

[Proud 2b Peculiar]

I just got an alert saying that Bush favors a personal income tax rebate.

I am assuming this is part of his "plan" to help the economy not be so sluggish.

[SwissMrs&Pitchfire]

$800 for individuals and/or (not sure which) $1600 for households. Plan isn't finalized details on Bloomberg (amounts to $100-150 Billion their cap not my math, which is less than was requested at the repo window last Thursday but you won't mind will you?).

Bloomberg

[Proud 2b Peculiar]

" White House and Treasury officials have been working since late November on the outlines of a plan to stave off a recession or ameliorate the effects if one occurs.

The plan the administration is close to proposing includes a temporary elimination of the bottom tax rate, which is now 10 percent, and a consequent lump-sum rebate to all taxpayers, according to the people."


"Democrats in Congress are working on their own stimulus plan, which is also expected to include a tax rebate, as well as public works spending and additional aid for the poor through food stamps and other programs."

" Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke told the House Budget Committee in Washington today that a fiscal boost of as much as $150 billion would help revive economic growth.

A package of $100 billion ``would certainly be measurable, it would not be window dressing,'' said Bernanke. "

[SwissMrs&Pitchfire]

2 socialized plans, 1 big fight over the plans, 2 little time for filers to get it, 2 little, 2 late.

[John Adams]

2 socialized plans, 1 big fight over the plans, 2 little time for filers to get it, 2 little, 2 late.

This is what I'm wondering about as well. Is this just another "media blast" when something bigger is actually going on behind the scenes.

Per one of my favorite economic analysts, The Mogambo Guru, Total Fed Credit went down $22 Billion last week. If you're going to turn off the printing presses it makes it hard to give $150 Billion in rebate checks. Am I missing something?

Total Fed Credit, that magical spigot from which drops bank credit, from which money is created when somebody borrows the money, fell $22 billion last week! $22 billion! My God! This is horrible news for those (like Congress, Wall Street, the banks and the Federal Reserve) who are so preposterously and laughably stupid that they think that constantly creating more money, and more credit, and more debt, and more inflation in prices is (hahahaha!) good for an economy!

http://news.goldseek.com/RichardDaughty/1200639720.php

[sbenard]

Great link, John Adams (hahaha!) Very good article.

I hear helicopters overhead. The helicopter drop is about to begin. (For those of you who might not have heard, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke gave a speech in 2002 that earned him the moniker of "helicopter Ben", because he said the government has a thing called a "printing press" that they can use to print unlimited amounts of money and drop the dollars from helicopters to inflate their way out of any crisis.)

I astounds me that our government leaders are about to begin printing more fiat money so they can give it away to us. They will either print or borrow more money, just so they can give us each free money. Nobody is even talking about how to pay for all this free money!

Here's an idea:
Why don't we all just stop working, and the government can just send us all free money every month for the rest of our lives? We can all watch TV and play Monopoly while we get "economic stimulus" from Uncle Sam without limit. (Needless to say, I'm just joking. But its to make a point of how absurd it all is.)

Sometimes I wonder if there is anyone left in Washington that is sane! This will only result in more inflation.

True prosperity economics is based upon discipline, savings, and productivity, not endless debt and limitless printing of easy money, as suggested by many of our political leaders. These (productivity, discipline, savings) are the principles embodied in our Constitution, and taught by our prophets. Perhaps the best non-LDS website I know of that teaches these principles is this one at the Ludwig Von Mises institute of Austrian Economics:

http://mises.org/

[sbenard]

Isn't there a great quote by one of the Founders about how democracies always eventually collapse when the people discover that they can vote money for themselves out of the government treasuries? I'm sure someone has it and will post it for all our edification! History repeats itself for nations unwilling to learn its horrific lessons.

[HeirofNumenor]

Isn't there a great quote by one of the Founders about how democracies always eventually collapse when the people discover that they can vote money for themselves out of the government treasuries? I'm sure someone has it and will post it for all our edification!

I think that was Alexis de Tocqueville from "Democracy in America". All my books are in storage

[SwissMrs&Pitchfire]

I think there is a distinction between democracies and republics in that though. The people in a republic cannot vote themselves money, only vote for those who profess to do such a thing, there is a big difference in that because those representatives are presumably better men than ourselves and if so will not and if not will vote the money to themselves which is precisely what has been done.

[prew]

This is just off the top of my head. I haven't looked it up yet. But the tax rebate deal reminds me of the year 2001.
Bush just signed into law some tax law that allowed people to get a check in the mail. While people were receiving this check and were told to spend it, 9/11 happened.

Now, I wonder what will happen as we receive this rebate check in the mail.
De ja vu? any one?

[Proud 2b Peculiar]

yeah, I was just thinking of that last night.. "What tragedy is this going to be connected to?"

[SwissMrs&Pitchfire]

New York, New York!

[shadow]

History repeats itself. Good point PRew.

This whole rebate thing is lame and not based on principle. Nothing is free. All the government is doing is using my credit card, taking out a cash advance and saying "here you go!!" Then I get stuck with the bill plus interest (owed to China). No thanks.

[a-train]

I watched the C-Span coverage of the Senate meeting discussing this stimulus package. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R) wanted to issue a voucher to employers so that they could pay employees their full checks without withholding anything until the desired tax break was achieved. His idea was that this would be the fastest way to get the cash to the people.

I personally think that regardless of how this goes down, it isn't going to stimulate the economy at all. If people are smart, they will put that extra money against their debts. I have a feeling that will be the case as more economic worries arise.

The Dow is sliding down pretty hard today again and volume is on its way to 400 million. It is well on its way to where it was when Bush took office.

I never filed for 2006 so I won't even get anything anyway.

-a-train

[ChelC]

My husband was talking to me about the church's grain storage last night. The church has more wheat than it does storage space, so it will pay private companies to store it's wheat. The companies don't actually store specific wheat crop though... they buy and sell like stock brokers, but when the church demands delivery on it's note, they are guaranteed so many bushels of whichever wheat at a specified quality as stated on it's receipts. Kind of like FRNs used to be good for so much gold, or so much silver.

The federal reserve system is as fraudulent as if the wheat storage companies claimed the reciepts were actually the wheat! That is a perfect comparison and shows exactly how absurd the whole thing is!

[Proud 2b Peculiar]

Wow, a paper system backed by wheat.. kinda a cool thought.