Sounds like the election year economic stimulus package has been passed & signed by the President, so the checks are forthcoming. Yes, I’m eligible to receive the prescribed “rebate”, even though I don’t think I need it and even though the total may even exceed what I paid in federal taxes last year.
Reports suggest that the economy is headed for a slowdown — some say a recession — and the stimulus package is intended to be an infusion of cash that will head it off. I’m not sure how serious the slowdown is because around here, things are pretty decent. Unemployment is down, building permits are up, etc… Don’t know if I’d call it a boom, but people don’t seem to be hurting.
What I wonder is this; if the stimulus package wasn’t approved and the recession didn’t materialize, would anybody connect the two? You’ve got to know that after the rebates hit the streets, if the recession doesn’t happen, everybody in Washington will be like, “Good thing we did that; imagine how bad the economy would be if we hadn’t.” Come to think of it, they’ll probably say something like that even if there is a recession; “Good thing we did that; imagine how much worse it would be if we hadn’t.”
All the stimulus package amounts to is a dose of income redistribution. The people in the higher tax brackets don’t get the rebates; some would say that a rebate of this size wouldn’t make a difference to people who make a lot of money. But if the intent is to get people to go out and spend to give the economy a boost, wouldn’t giving cash to more people — including those who are already spending disposable income — help even more?