It was just reported on MSNBC that people who make >$75K will get no benefit. Screw Congress. I'm voting against incumbents.
No doubt. But all that stupid spending is not good either. Sure in the short term its beneficial - but in the long term? Sounds like another deficit/inflation enabling ding in the American-Bell-of-Economic-Doom.
WTF? Goddammit. justtxyank ****ing nailed it. They need the ultradumb americans. They could care less about the "reasonably smart" upper-middle class.
I guess you missed this part If you are middle class in some of the high cost of living areas, no rebates for you.
That's not the dem base though, I am pretty sure when the Dems railed against Bush tax cuts, they consider middle class to be the working poor.
Yep! No soup for the wife and I. oh well, we probably would have just paid our heating oil bill for the winter on the weekend home.
Same here, no rebate. It is kind of strange to think about what this actually means, the hand outs (which you won't get) come straight from the taxes you have paid (which you have paid more than those who get the rebates). Really this is a one time tax on people makes more than 75k.
I get nothing, except inflation eating up my savings. Nice to see that the Republicans and Democrats can get together to buy votes in an election year.
Yeah, I just skimmed the article. I saw a report on it over lunch, and that was the first that I noticed.
Bernanke was the one to push the idea of focusing on those who would spend it immediately. He made it pretty clear in his testimony to Congress last week that the best bang for the buck is to get it to the poor / lower-middle classes. Everyone was in agreement here - Dems because they wanted to get money to the poor/middle class, the Bush admin because they wanted to keep the total number as small as possible to limit the deficit growth. The easily agreed to solution was to limit the income level - it gets money to the poor but lessens the total cost of the stimulus.
While I agree it's not entirely fair, the purpose of the program is to stimulate. The assumption is if an individual makes $75k or a family makes $150k, they don't necessarily need emergency stimulation. Granted, there is a problem depending on where exactly you live and such, but the purpose of this is stimulation, not just handing out money.
Here is another report about who qualifies for rebates. Sounds like it may not be set in stone and if you have kids you could qualify even if you and your wife make almost 200K. The rebates would phase out gradually for individuals whose income exceeds $75,000 and couples with incomes above $150,000, aides said. Individuals with incomes up to $87,000 and couples up to $174,000 would get partial rebates. The caps are higher for those with children. I guess partial rebates would be around $300 or so. http://www.yahoo.com/s/790898
Is the 75K (individual)/150K (married) cap on getting the rebate based on your 2007 or 2008 income? Anyone know? Thanks I would assume 2007...?
I got the impression it would be based on your 2006 income tax return (filed in 2007), based on an article which stated that they are in talks with the IRS to get checks out ASAP. That implies that they would have to base that on last years tax return. But that is just an assumption on my part.
Major, doesn't it make more sense to come up with some sort of equation based on your zip code to factor in your salary with your cost of living and then determine who gets what? Just saying a $75k blanket number seems a little ridiculous.
