Not a single Republican vote. Heard that before.

@maporsche,

I'll put $20 per bi-weekly paycheck into perspective for you:

$20 provides 2 weeks of school lunches for one child. No longer having to buy school lunches from ones current take home would be significant to a lot of families.

$20 currently provides me two weeks of gas. Not having to buy gas from my current take home would be ... too sweet!

$20 covers a Pet Smart vet health plan, making sure pets get fixed, get their shots, wormings, etc AND leaves another $20 from the next paycheck for Mama to get a new pair of shoes.

$20 pays for 2 weeks of cereal and milk.

$40 extra in a month pays most peoples water bill, and a lot of peoples home phone bill.

$40 extra per month would cover notebook paper, pencils and a couple of field trips.

$40 extra per month would cover half of my car insurance, and all of a lot of peoples vehicle insurance.

See, now I don't even have it and I'm already spending it...

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@Joe Nation,

There were a couple of Democrats who voted against too - 11 of them. None of the news reports I was coming across specified who they were so I looked up who they were, made a map, etc.

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@maporsche,

Like I said, you must be pretty well off to wave away $40 a month as chump change nobody'd care about.

That'd be free Wifi at home for me. I'd be pleased with it.

Oh, and someone's downvoting every post he doesnt agree with ... what a surprise.

1 Reply

@nimh,

I make less than those poor autoworkers at the UAW that we've had to bail out earlier this year. That puts me pretty square into the middle class.

$40/mo doesn't mean much to me, no. And I'm still pretty far from rich

...and not sure if you're accusing me of downvoting your posts, if so, F-off.

1 Reply

@squinney,

It's fairly easy to trim $40.00 a month from your monthly obligations
and achieve the same results without using stolen tax payer monies.

Look at your fixed weekly and monthly individual/family expenses for fat that can be trimmed.

http://www.athenswater.com/images/PrezBO.jpg

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@maporsche,

Well I'm glad you're well-off enough that $40 is chump change for you. But dont even pretend that other people won't "even notice" it.

Just look at Squinney's list above - there's a lotta people out there who'd be helped immensely by such things.

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@nimh,

People need to fend for themselves and become less dependent on the government.

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@maporsche,

If you don't notice that $20 that means you will spend it without thinking.

If 100,000,000 families spend an extra $20 every 2 weeks that is $104 billion more spending in the economy which is about 1%. That would be about 30% of a decent GDP growth.

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@Thomas,

Thomas,
Very astute reply...

In addition, there is absolutely no way the Dems will be able to control where this firehose of dollars leaving the coffers eventually ends up. It's a scandal waiting to happen (just look at the earlier stimulus package to the banks which no one has oversight of).

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@slkshock7,

Sure, the democrats will be screw ups because the republicans were. Rolling Eyes

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@squinney,

Question:

That last government check you got last year to stimulate the economy, how much did it benefit you and Bear? What necessity were you able to buy that you could not have provided for yourself? Was it helpful enough to justify swelling the national debt that your kids and grand kids will be saddled with so that you could have that check? Can you show how the economy was stimulated and improved because those checks went out?

It isn't that paying for necessities for folks is a bad thing. Who doesn't appreciate getting something free? Who among us turns down free stuff that we can use when it is offered to us? But why should you or your kids or your grandkids be saddled with the burden of providing me free stuff that I am perfectly capable of providing for myself?

Even setting that argument aside, if we thought more than a small fraction of the stimulus package was actually going to stimulate the economy or that more than a tiny fraction of the stimulus package would provide essential goods or services that people are unable to provide for themselves, there would be a whole lot less objection to it.

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Hell, might as well cross-post this:

Quote:

Building a stimulus package - what kind of spending actually works best?

This chart comes courtesy of Prof. James K. Galbraith: December 8, 2008

------------

BANG FOR THE BUCK
What a dollar of stimulus puts back into the economy when spent on...

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@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

Was it helpful enough to justify swelling the national debt that your kids and grand kids will be saddled with so that you could have that check?

If the economy keeps freezing up and the country keeps hurtling into an economic crisis that dampens production, job creation and investment, a lot more money will be lost than is now spent on the stimulus package. So it's more of a question of what burden would be the bigger one to saddle your kids with.

If stimulus packages like this one work to stop the bleeding and keep the economy at a relatively even keel, that will benefit our children too - because rebuilding the economy once it's collapsed will cost a lot more!

There's the rub though, of course, in my view ... I actually don't think this stimulus package is enough. Going on what wiser people like Krugman say, I believe that to save the economy from heading south long-term, much more needs to be spent. So I'm afraid you'll have money spent on stimulus and still no success in stopping the bleeding - and that's just Obama's bill, here in Europe political courage is even more lacking.

But the opposite course, what conservatives are proposing - going for balanced budget at a time like this - would be disastrous for the economy. And the next generation would suffer more from that disaster than it will from the money borrowed now.

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I think Galbraith is a bleeding heart liberal without a clue what a true economic stimulus is.

Good economic stimulus would be:
1. Re-regulate the banks to require sound lending practices so that they are not required or allowed to lend to people with little chance of being able to repay the loans. That would free up credit and control inflation as nothing else is likely to do.
2. Lower capital gains taxes or at least make the current ones permanent so that business can invest and expand without fear of the tax consequences.
3. Lower business taxes to free up money for business to expand and grow and create jobs.
4. Lower personal taxes so that people have more money to pump back into the economy in a way that will increase the national treasury instead of add to the national debt.
5. Remove as much wage supports and regulation as is reasonable, without compromising the national safety and security, to increase business profits and ability to produce what the market wants instead of what the government thinks the people should have.
6. Allow infrastructure to follow economic growth as is necessary to sustain it instead of thinking economic growth will follow government-initiated infrastructure.
7. Trust the people to be innovative, inventive, creative, and practical to move society forward as it has always done, and get government out of the way as much as possible.

We cannot spend ourselves into prosperity by providing and doing for others what they are capable of doing for themselves.

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@Foxfyre,

It's not Prof. Galbraith who is without a clue. I mean, seriously - lowering capital gains taxes as an example of a true stimulus measure? That makes no sense at all. There's a reason why the chart above shows it as one of the least effective ways of stimulating the economy.

This overview notes that the Congressional Research Service itself stated, back in 2003, that "a capital gains tax cut appears the least likely of any permanent tax cut to stimulate the economy in the short run; a temporary capital gains cut is unlikely to provide any stimulus" -- and provides a good explanation of why this is so:

Quote:

Any windfall that taxpayers receive from a capital gains tax cut is unlikely to be spent quickly. The main beneficiaries of capital gains tax cuts would be high-income taxpayers, who own the vast majority of assets. For example, the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center has estimated that 98 percent of the benefit of temporarily cutting the capital gains rate in half would flow to the top 20 percent of households; 75 percent of the benefit would flow just to the top 1 percent of households.

The fact that capital gains tax cuts go mostly to high-income households makes them very poor stimulus, since high-income households are much more likely than low-income households to save rather than spend a significant portion of any new resources they receive. To boost consumer spending, stimulus resources should be directed at those who will spend these funds quickly.

In fact, lowering the capital gains tax might even be counterproductive:

Quote:

[..] A temporary capital gains tax cut would induce investors to hurry and sell their stocks now while the lower tax rate applies. The resultant sell-off could cause a larger decline in stock prices, thereby damaging consumer confidence. [..]

A temporary capital gains cut may be somewhat less likely to spark a large stock sell-off when the economy is weak and the stock market is already down, because investors will have fewer stocks that have appreciated in value (and thus less opportunity to take advantage of the lower rate). But if the rate cut does not lead to a large increase in capital gains realizations, it cannot possibly have much of a stimulative effect on the economy [either], even under the most strained argument made on its behalf. This is because the only new resources that a capital gains cut can possibly make available for consumption are the tax benefits received by investors who sell stocks at a profit.

Conclusion:

Quote:

In short, if a temporary capital gains cut does prompt a large increase in capital gains realizations, it would likely depress stock prices and could further weaken a slow economy; if it does not prompt a large increase in realizations, it will have only a minor effect on consumption. Either way, it would prove ineffective " or even counter-productive " as stimulus.

Instead of providing high-income taxpayers with a tax cut that will not significantly boost consumption, Congress should focus on effective stimulus measures that would put resources in the hands of people who will spend them.

Lowering the capital gains tax is not a solution; it's one of the least likely measures to provide a short-term stimulus. It's just a pet priority for conservatives, which they will trot it out as solution regardless of what the problem at hand is.

Why? God knows - it doesn't make economic sense. I guess they just instinctively like the idea of putting extra money in the pockets of those who are already very rich, and abhor the thought of putting extra money in the pockets of people who have to struggle to get by. Even if the latter is more effective in jumpstarting the economy at a time like this.

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@Foxfyre,

Quote:

We cannot spend ourselves into prosperity by providing and doing for others what they are capable of doing for themselves.

Do you or your husband get Social Security payments/Medicaid/ or any other government help, Foxy. If you don't now, will you take them in the future when they drop in your mailbox?

1 Reply

@JTT,

It is obviously that Foxfyre...and the other conservatives...think there is not enough to go around.

To their way of thinking...if 5 individuals were enterprising enough and smart enough to control 95% of all the wealth in the United States...they should be able to do so.

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I'm guessing that most of us here are not living on $9 an hour. Millions of people do. I'm also guessing that most of us here have not lost our jobs. (yet?) Millions have and more will in the coming months. Just because $40 is not significant to you, doesn't make it worthless to millions of others.

Supposedly, Bush inherited a recession in 2001 and here we are eight years later, with 6 of those years being republican majority, and we are actually heading for the worst depression ever. I really don't get where they think they have any right whatsoever to even be at the table.

NOW they are concerned about passing debt onto our kids and grandkids??? Give me a friggin' break.

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The vast majority of people affected by capital gains are by no means rich, Nimh. I dare say your net worth is probably more than mine--almost everybody's is--and I benefit from lower taxes on capital gains. Any of us with a 401K or IRA or who inherited a small portfolio from Uncle Ed or who own any kind of property apart from our primary residence or who run any kind of business all benefit from lower capital gains. Raise capital gains taxes, you will of course for the short term increase revenues to the national treasury for the government to spend or give away for whatever, but you also hurt small business, mom and pop operations, make it more difficult to invest venture capital or expand the business or hire more people.

The CBO in the early 1990's agreed that lowering the capital gains tax does cause short term increase in the deficit but that it does stiumulate the economy pushing it to a higher GNP. If there are no further changes, the initial stimulus levels out but at that higher GNP which offsets any negative effect on the treasury.

The CATO Institute and the Heritage Foundation who have done extensive research on this disagree with the CBO analysis because it does not consider the change in human behavior generated by minimizing risk to those willing to take risks and by not discouraging initiative by cutting into anticipated profits.

There's all sorts of ways to look at it.

But allowing the people to keep more of what they earn has always proved to be a positive economic stimulus.

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@squinney,

Squinny....I was in NO WAY involved or supportive of the GWB administration. I voted for President Obama.

I AM CONCERNED ABOUT PASSING DEBT TO MY KIDS AND GRANDKIDS.

You damn well should be too. You know what, **** ANYONE who isn't concerned about this. All of the previous generations thought like this too, and THAT is why we're ******* where we are now.

People under 30 UNITE!

1 Reply

Not a single Republican vote. Heard that before.

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