SURPRISE! Dems Break Promise: Stimulus Bill to Floor Friday

A friend of mine suggested that instead of a $600 stimulus check, the government last year should have given everyone $600 prepaid VISA Debit cards for this exact reason.

Plus, you could track exactly what was purchased with the stimulus money.

 

It has nothing to do with his political beliefs. It has to do with wandering into

 

One thing I don't understand is why there wasn't more emphasis on "free" stimulus. For example, people lost fortunes last year in the stock market - but you can only take up to $3000 in capital losses in a given year. Why not increase that to $25,000? That's immediate money that people get in hand within a few months when they file their taxes. At the same time, the long-term cost to the government is basically zero (minus some time value of money issues) because if people claim that, it's less losses they can claim in the future.

It seems to me the very definition of stimulus - an immediate boost in the economy that's paid for in future years. We've done something similar with the Sec 179 business deduction, but why not do it for individuals?

 

when were you when W and the Republican-controlled congress approved the spending on the bridge to nowhere

 

Actually, if you bothered to educate yourself, you would know that Congress stripped the ~$400mm allocated to the Gravina Island Bridge out of the spending bill. This was after a Republican offered an amendment which removed it.

Let's live in your world of no education for a moment and pretend that this bill did in fact pass Congress. How does $400 million compare to $800 BILLION of pork?

Get a clue. Better yet, don't post without doing your homework.

 

$287 billion of the 787 billion goes to tax breaks.

Thanks for the good laugh.

 

Even a pork chop has a little bone in it, even if most of those 'tax breaks' go to people that don't pay taxes and certainly don't make their way up to my income strata.

Face it, PORKULUS is a hand out to the unemployed and low income voters that bought into the media's fantasy and elected Snobama The Clueless.

 

You can't properly understand the present without reconciling the past. This stimulus isn't the problem. We need a stimulus. There may be a disagreement on the size of it but there's not a lot of disagreement of the need for one. It's the blank check to Wall Street that Bush rushed to Congress and the spending in regular economic times that's been the problem. Where were all of you anti-government spenders when Bush was running record deficits year after year? Where have you been all these years?

 

if rich people can't handle their money, it shouldn't be up to the government to help them with it. personal responsibility, please.

 

For all the people worried about the future debt, I understand. That future debt was also a problem when we were taking money out of the economy and giving to the wealthy in the form of huge tax breaks the past 8 years.

Think of it like a car. That kind of treatment is what broke the car. The car is broken and now we are out of a job. We can't get a job without a working car. We don't have the money to fix the car without a job.

The idea with the stimulus is to buy the car now, and then get the job, so that we can start making money again. But without the car we are screwed.

 

Is your assumption like this: as long as you get your car fixed, you will surely get a job?

 

A better example would be this timeless claasic:

 

A better example would be this timeless clas sic:

 

Yes Ring of Fire with Don the Dragon Wilson is a timeless classic!

 

More along the lines of this: without a car, you will never get a job.

 

Nothing is sure. But fredred said, without a car you can't get a job. It doesn't mean that with a car you will automatically get one 100%. But you'll need a car if you hope to get a job.

 

This might be relevant, except for the fact that it's not true. Can you really not even find a single actual example of pork in the bill? You know, without making stuff up?

http://mediamatters.org/items/200902050020

In fact, as Media Matters for America has repeatedly documented, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act does not mention ACORN or otherwise single it out for funding; ACORN itself has said that it is ineligible for the funds and has no plans to apply for them. Dobbs' claim is based on a misrepresentation of a provision of the bill that would appropriate $4.19 billion "for neighborhood stabilization activities related to emergency assistance for the redevelopment of abandoned and foreclosed homes as authorized under division B, title III of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008."

The $4.19 billion would be distributed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) Neighborhood Stabilization Program, an existing program authorized under Title III of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008. HUD's website states that the purpose of the program is to provide assistance "to acquire and redevelop foreclosed properties that might otherwise become sources of abandonment and blight within their communities."

In a January 28 press release and January 29 piece for The Huffington Post, ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis denied that ACORN is eligible for the "neighborhood stabilization funds" and stated that it does not intend to apply for them.

 

can you provide proof of your claim?

does factcheck.org rise to your journalistic standards?