Figured out where you're going to spend an extra 800 cash yet?

I guess the president hasn't decided yet on the final details. At least I read that somewhere. Here I'm thinking it's a done deal unless I heard early information. I did read he's going to talk about in his State of the Union address on the 28th.

If its a regular rebate, since the bulk of lower income people pay zero fed income (only paying SS also (in effect) offset via the EITC) taxes already -then they won't get anything, unless they make it a type of credit. However I doubt most strippers would be aware of this, because of the ones that file, odds are very high they are only in very low brackets or just reporting enough to get their refunds

$800? Hope I qualify.

The refund/rebte will be eaten up by the new cost of gasoline at the pump.

I'll believe that I'm actually getting a full $800 (or anything at all for that matter) when I see it in my mailbox. I know Bushy Boy was talking the other day about a proposal that the Congressional Dems have been working on since last year.

I'm skeptical too. I remember the last rebate was more like an advance on your income tax refund. I heard this one would be free and clear with no strings attached.
Yeah, mr president, show me the money.
Apparently we have to see it to believe it.
Then all the complaining and griping will come from those that didn't get any.

I'll spend it on hookers and crack.

BobbyL: Or maybe you could spend it on hookers' cracks?

I'll spend it with my wife at SCORES Chicago!

If the initial press is correct, I won't be getting any of it. If I do, I will put it in a fund for my next trip to Tijuana.

If the US Govt sends me a check in ANY amount (free & clear), I'll probably have to return it...................................... to apply on my potential payment to IRS for 2007 taxes. I lose either way, they win every which way! :-(

Not if you vote for Ron Paul ... :)

Since I am in the 32% tax bracket, I will with hold 32% and spend the rest on strippers. I gotta give the economy a boost!

Bro - with you all the way. Except if we spend the remainder of our money on strippers... are being giving the Columbian drug cartels a boost instead of our economy?

That depends...are all your favorite strippers drug-addicts?

casualguy,

Likely, I will spend it wherever I would have, before the government confiscated, it in the first place!

By the time the politicians start talking about govt rebates and so forth - usually that means the recession has already begun. Right now (as one example) the official stats are not taking into account all these illegals presently out of work in the residential construction business. In the northeast USA, some kind of downturn is clearly already in the works - and no doubt the stats will prove this a year or 2 down the road. Expect to see hits in new car sales, restaurant businesses, and general retail - some of this intertwined with this credit unwinding in the works.

I will give 1/3 to my kids, 1/3 to my soon-to-be-ex, and the rest should be good for a single SC visit. That should boost the economy, in AZ at least, and help put us back on the road to recovery!

Does the $800 just come out of my already questionable future Social Security benefits, or some other magical source in the Federal government?

harrydave,

There is only one "source in the Federal government", a taxpayer! And by this time, if you don't know how the government can bring in greater revenue, then you're very young or have not been paying attention.

I guess you could say the Chinese will be providing the $800 checks. They already own about 1 trillion dollars worth of our stuff. Kind of like playing a game of Civilization when you ask a foreign country "care to give me a new loan for another 250 billion?"
Or you could fantasize, we like strip clubs so that might be good. You could imagine there is a big Social Security trust fund the government has been saving up all these years it has been in surplus, saving up for the day and years ahead when the baby boomers retire and money will need to be withdrawn from it. Ahh, that sucks too bad, our congressmen already spent it all, it's just another tax in disguise. The words trust fund when talking about social security is a joke.

The best one I thought of, Uncle Sam tells the Chinese, "just put it on my tab!"

I believe I can put that 800 dollars to better use than someone in congress who wants to build a senseless pet project.

My understanding is that the SS "trust fund" is "invested" in govt. securities...securities where we owe most of the money to ourselves and some to businesses or foreign countries. SS will be there for everyone if we want it to be IMO. The idea that Bushy Boy tried to push a few years back that the SS trust fund was just a bunch of "IOUs" was very irresponsible, since the only backing of govt. securities (and our money for that matter) is the "full faith and credit of the USA" at this point.

As many BBBJCIM as it lasts for.

It should pay for my health insurance for the summer.

CasualGuy: You're right, the Chinese will own us soon anyway so I'd take the opportunity to make a 'direct deposit' into one of their best looking women. Not cash though.

I remember hearing someone joke, "I hope you like rice!" The Chinese are coming. I didn't really think it was that funny because I don't like rice. However for now, they seem to be helping our economy with low priced goods. If you bought almost anything at Wal-mart other than food, you're probably buying products made in China. I heard it's very difficult not to buy Chinese made products now for certain products. I read 10 percent of all the US imports from China go to Wal-mart here in the US.

Well I did read the other day, if one of China's best customers stops buying (the US), their economy and stock market should take a major hit. I think they just thought the Chinese stock market is in a bubble with super high PE ratios kind of like internet stocks long ago.

casualguy, there is some upside to having a weak dollar, but this is ridiculous. Like you said, if a Chinese company decides to not buy from us anymore, or even if some Chinese bank decides to call in a loan from an American bank that borrowed money from them, we're toast. That's part of the reason we're in the place that we're in now.

Anyway, the tentative stimulus package is now in place -- and it looks like a single guy like me is going to get only between 300 and 600 dollars. Let me revise my previous statement to say that should pay my health insurance for the spring.

I don't buy anything at Wal-Mart or Sam's Club (we don't have one of those around here though). My Dad always asks me over the phone if I want anything from Sam's Club, and I always say, "No thanx, I don't need anything from China." :)

The Chinese aren't coming BTW I don't think. I don't know the percentages of American national debt or other kinds of debt that the Chinese hold though.

I have to revise my post. After reading the exact language. I am not going to get shit. I make too much money. I guess that is why I didn't realize that the economy was in the shitter. I guess that I will just take my $5,000 profit sharing check due in 2 weeks and spend it on strippers. Not all in one night of course. That should take care of me for about 4 months.

I guess this tax rebate is going to reduce my refund I get in 2009 for the year 2008. Then I'll probably have to pay state taxes on it too as income. I expect to get a much smaller refund back in 2009 after reading more details. I think the stimulus plan sucks a little bit. I thought I initially heard no strings attached. No free lunch I guess. I could have gotten that money faster by just adjusting my withholding but now I don't think I will or I might owe money. Guess I'll need to save more money to account for the uncertainty the federal government has added to my life.

If the federal government really wanted Americans to increase savings, they could set up an alternate to the Roth IRA and let you save money that was tax deductible without income limits and let you withdraw the original funds without any extra penalties if you decided you needed them for whatever reason. Then, they could let your earnings in that account grow tax free with your only tax penalty being the tax owed on the original contributions. If you already paid tax on the money, you get a refund when you file, payable later when you withdraw the original contributions. I doubt this will ever happen, the federal government trying to increase the savings of Americans, haha.

Yea, it's another bait and switch...just like the 2001 tax rebates. You have declare it on the taxes that you file in 2009 I think. I'll still believe that I'm getting an actual check if one shows up in the mail this spring.

Romney actually has an interesting plan to encourage people to save more money...I just don't know how he'd pay for it is all. I always get annoyed when I have to pay taxes on income that I've decided to save (that I've already paid taxes on once)...the idea that they can't let us "earn" the piddly amount of interest that we can get in a lot of accounts is pretty sad IMO.

At the end of 2006 I switched jobs and as a result I got a big raise, about $9,000/year. I just filed my 2007 taxes, the first full year at the new salary. Out of that $9,000 increase in my income I paid an extra $3,000 in federal, state, and local income taxes, and I bought a new car, so I paid about $1,500 in fees and sales taxes. That doesn't even consider property tax increases, which while they follow the housing prices up very quickly never seem to track quite as close as prices fall, they increased in the neighborhood of $900. So, of that big $9,000 raise I probably actually took home an extra $3,600, or about $300 a month. Nothing to sneeze at, but when I only get to keep about 40% of my extra income, income I have to work much harder for, I get a bit miffed when politicians do me the huge favor of giving me some of my own money back and then want to be praised for their generosity.

I'll probably spend it on a kayak. I've always wanted to take up kayaking.

It's silly isn't it. The $1800 "in your pocket" is an obvious pandering to the lowest intellectual common denominator. And the tax rates, and multiple "secret" regressive taxes, are awful too. I've heard people make a reasonable case, that the USA is the highest taxed nation on the earth, contrary to popular opinion about Sweden, Holland, Denmark, and the like.

It's sad that we've gotten so far away from what the founding fathers believed in, that is low taxation and a small government. I thought there was once a Tea party or something about that in Boston a long time ago. Things have changed when the top candidates for President want to increase our taxes. You know they do when they want to expand social programs because just increasing the national debt isn't going to work to pay for those programs.

I don't mind getting money from the government, however if they just let me keep more of my money to start with, I would have more to spend.

I think the Tea Party was mostly about "no taxation without representation" and slighty about trying to scape-goat Native Americans, since the people doing the tossing were dressed like Indians.

I think if there's a program that's worth spending money on...it's worth finding a funding resource for that program Pay-as-you-go...Democrats are for it...Republicans aren't...just look at the track record.

Pay as you go ... what? Can you give me more specifics? I haven't heard of this.

By the way, some Founding Fathers were indeed successful urban merchants who wanted low government restrictions and low taxation, and that was their prime motivation for being willing to risk rebellion. But some others were legal scholars, slave holders (it doesn't GET any more toward "imposing on civil liberties by means of big government" than allowing certain humans to hold other humans hostage as part of the "economic" system), etc. It's a bit of a misrepresentation, to suggest that the USA was founded solely or primarily in order to get a more laissez-faire free market system for shopkeepers in Boston. That's just one piece of the puzzle.

PAYGO...I think it gained favor in the 1990s, then went out of favor under Bushy Boy. See:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAYGO