Tax Refunds as Stimulus?

IMHO, it's purely a stunt. It has been tried before and has failed before.

Here's a solution for our US politicians. Stop thess senseless wars and refocus the tax dollars on taking care of the working poor and giving people decent health care that works.

Stunt. A tax program that influences future decisions, such as liberalized depreciation rules (just as example) might be useful. A reward for past behavior has little value. A reward for, well, nothing special accomplishes nothing special.

It is looking like it is going to happen, though, in one form or another. The questions now seem to be how much, and whether it goes to everyone who filed a return, or only those who had taxable income.

Here's the deal - cash exists in 3 dimensions, time, quantity, and possessor, and does us the most good when it flows. What we want to do is use it to motivate folks.

Two ways of doing that. Number one let it be what it will be and let people be motivated by whatever motivates them (materialism, starvation, boredom). Number two, get proactive, put it where it belongs, poke and prod us with our bills and cell-phone commercials without ever letting us take what we want or fail on our own, either out of compassion for the futility of our struggles (yeah, right Mother Theresa) or just because either way we end up taking less **** if we do for ourselves. Which one is right or wrong is immaterial, the fact is regardless of morality or relative effectiveness there are folks who would orchestrate Plan 2 for free like this guy;




I think the tax returns are an example of the G realizing they went too far, or too sloppy, with Plan 2 and throttling it back. In that sense, very much on order, but not a solution.

huh? I'm not not sure that I get you..or that you understood my comment, apparently. Nothing I suggested or discussed was for free.

Just in terms of economic stimulus, someone needs to spend money. Government spending is just as effective as personal spending. If the government borrows money, hands it out and no one spends it or it replaces money people would have borrowed for themselves, it doesn't provide stimulus.

I think it only really helps if you use the $800 bucks (or whatever it works out to be) to pay down your existing debt.

If everyone pays down their existing debt, it actually has no effect at all since the total debt (Government + People) remains the same. The only way to get "stimulus" is for debt to go up so that people can buy things they don't have money for.

If you'll excuse my poor analogy, It's like putting air in a tire that still has a leak. Does it put air in the tire? of course it does. Does it fix the problem" I don't think so in the longer term.

So, would it be better for the government to spend the same money by distributing to states to fix roads and do other infrastructure updates and repairs because it employees people and buys materials, etc?

I think that is a question you have to answer for yourself but that would also stimulate the economy.

That's my belief. Those types of projects put people to work both directly and by through the purchase of materials, equipment, etc. Since we need to do those projects eventually anyway (assuming they're not pork bridges to nowhere), it's not actually all that expensive.

From what I heard on the radio this morning, it sounds like Congress is going for the politically expedient solution of giving everyone some money and hoping they will spend it instead of saving or paying off bills.

Which is why they need to give money to those that aren't earning enough to pay income taxes if they give out money.

If you earn enough to pay taxes then you probably have good enough credit to borrow money and have debt. It is the people with no credit that will spend the money because they won't have debts to pay off.

ditto.

Fat Chance of that... there'll be so many Tax Refund Sales advertised in the Sunday paper that you'll need a crane to pick it up.

YES. It will accomplish all these things with the extra added bonus of actually rebuilding something we didn't spend money to blow up in the first place. what a concept, spending money on maintaining and upgrading our own country for our own citizens.

Just don't give the contracts to Haliburton please.

Time to buy Best Buy stock. $800 is about the sale price of that 37" LCD TV

Here's what I don't get.

They're about to convert all television broadcasts to digital. They've even prepared for up to 33 million people to request rebate certificates to help pay for the converters. That's just the people who can't afford or don't want to pay for it on their own. There's no estimate of how many others will go out and buy the converters or even go out and buy brand new digital televisions.

This is all to take place in the next 12 months. So..

Who is manufacturing the stockpile of millions of converters and digital TVs to meet the sudden demand this year and who is profitting from it?

Why isn't that enough of a stimulus to get corporate America going again?

Also, if people have to choose between upgrading their TV reception to digital and saving their house from foreclosure, the conversion to digital broadcast program will be a dismal failure and millions of people will lose access to local news and weather reports when the switch over occurs.

If the federal rebate program is good enough for digital converters, why isn't such a program also good enough for other commodities we all use every day such as gasoline or groceries or electricity?

It shouldn't have to involve the IRS and it shouldn't all be geared to put more profits into American materialism, most of which goes outside our economy to other countries where the products are made.

Why not send all Senior Citizens a tripled Social Security check in February? The machinery is all set up.

I'd vote for that, Noddy.