$13.00 a Week. Is everyone Happy?

Are you seriously delusional?

Do you really think that I'm a republican in disguise.


I'd be willing to bet you're the only person here who would accuse me of being OK with the Bush bailout program. I even posted a thread where I was considering quitting my job (and still am) because my company chose to take bailout money.

I wish it were still easy to search for my previous posts, because there are plenty to prove you wrong (I'm sure Cyclops remembers).

Well, you can come by and stick it up my ass if you want.

I'll dig it out and do a lot of good with it.

In this matter I agree with Butterfly. $13/week, 52/month would make a huge difference to a lot of people

$13 a week is less than I spend a week on gas to get to and from my job.

$13 would buy a gallon of milk, a pound of dry beans that will end up making 2 or more pounds after its cooked, brown rice to go with the beans, a dozen eggs, broccoli, a bag of apples, a couple cans of tuna and a moon pie.

$52 would just about cover a minimum credit card payment for $4000 of someones credit card debt.

$52 covers a number of co-payments for people taking medication.

It would pay for a months worth of bus transportation so you could go to work or look for work.

Everytime you look, you read or hear stories with people saying "Gas has gone up $1.00 a gallon, I can't drive anywhere." $52 would let you buy the gas and keep you driving.

Oh, or people say "I can't afford to drive a 200 miles to Grandma's for Christmas because of the price of gas" Well, now they can.

If someone walked up to many people and said "I'm going to give you a 38 cent raise, they may not go delirious with joy, but they would say stick it up your ass either.

Anyone here who doesn't want their $13 a week, let me know and I'll give you my home address to mail it to me. I won't keep a penny of it, but will make a bunch of people lives a little easier.

I'm not being a pollyanna. It can definately be better. But you gotta work with what you got at the moment.

bunch of whiney butts.

It will do a little for some people. Not a lot for most.

It will do virtually nothing for the overall economy.

...well, maybe not to your face but many who were expecting a larger raise would be insulted enough to say a few choice words behind your back!

Which brings us to Obama's plan...people (I believe) were expecting more and he just under-delivered on this plan with $13 a week.

That will bring resentment and a few choice words behind his back.

Actually, it could very well do something to stimulate the economy. Soz posted about this a week or so ago.

Consuming From Income, Not Wealth.

Not quite true. It would do something for the economy. Whether it would be the best use of money is another question.

Consider, the economy went into recession over 12 months ago yet when the rebate checks came out last spring and summer the economy grew. That shows that the small amount will do something.

Aren't some people part of the economy?

Going back to the statement I made about people saying they can't do this, that or the other because the price of something went up a dime or a quarter....

Seems to me at some point in the last 6 months almost everyone I talk to has said that their is something they can no longer afford because the price has gone up. It's usually something that the total increase is less than $50...who am I kidding, it's ususally something that the price has gone up $5 or $10.

So, if these people are now able to start doing whatever it is, because they have an extra $5 or $10, won't that help the producers and sellers of those goods?

If people stopped going out to the all you can eat buffet because the price when up, won't they start going again if they have the money that covers that increase?

Won't the restaurant then be able to keep all the people in the restaurant working, not having to lay anyone off?

Won't those restaurant workers who continue to have a job go out and buy products and services?

I don't know what type of people you come into contact with daily, but I'm here to say there are a LOT of people who are living so close to the edge a couple bucks a day means eating.

How many people will keep their cable service, internet connection, buy the medications they need, because they have an amount of money that will cover it?

There are SO many people out there who don't take their medications because they can't afford it. So they aren't well enough to have a productive life.

Given the extra money, they will buy their meds, they will feel better. They will now have the opportunity to do more.

This isn't about being given so much money you or I can sit back and wallow in it's riches. Frankly, I haven't lost a damn thing, and I doubt I will. I don't need the $13.00 a week. I have to ask myself "What extra amount a week Would make such a significant change in my life?" I couldn't even hazard a guess.

Let me ask you maporsche....what amount extra a week would cause you to say "Wow, that's a good deal more than I had, and now I will be able to make my life better, or get it back to where it was."

For all of you, what would that amount have to be?

If we don't want that $13.00, instead of wiping your butt with it, give it to someone who, with the $13 they are already getting will very much know what to do with an extra $26 a week.

Or, give it to someone who isn't getting anything extra. They'll really know what to do with it.

I don't know, some people are just making it sound like we're all living some life where tossing hundred dollar bills around is the norm.

I did not say if they were expecting a raise. I said if someone walked up to them and said "here, here's an extra .38 hr.

You say many will be insulted, I say an even greater number would be pretty cool with it.

Again, not saying this solution is good, cannot be better, is what I would have done.

However, it is apparant there're a lot of spoiled people out there who think they are too good such a small amount.

Like I said, if you don't want it, I'll take yours.

A couple of hundred bucks a week would get my attention and make me say "Wow".

At my burn rate, $50 a week wouldn't be noticed...a hundred might start to get my attention...$200 would be my "Wow" number.

So, seriously...

You would have to get a raise of between $3 and $6 and hour to make you not talk about whoever gave it to you behind their back?

That's a wow in itself.

Ok, let's go with that $200 a week number.

That's an extra $230-$250 a week before taxes.

Where would this money come from? Rather, how would you come up with this much money to distribute to each worker?

Please, tell me your thoughts on this.

I know there's a lot of pork out there, and personally there are some programs that I think could be put on hold or discontinued. But I'm interested in how you would do it.

Chai, it is good to know that somebody gets it. Thanks.

Yeah, go Chai.

Well, in that case I do hope you're not getting any of the stimulus money, cause you obviously don't need it.

I'm sure the people who will lose their jobs during this crisis, who thanks to this stimulus bill will get:

• extended unemployment benefits for 20 to 33 additional weeks
  
• $25 extra a week in the unemployment benefits they get
  
• the chance to keep their health benefits for the first nine months of unemployment, thanks to a 60% subsidy awarded to couples who earn under $250,000

.. will surely make up for your spoiled indifference in gratitude.

And the beauty of it is that, since they will need that money to pay for basics like rent, utilities and food, the money is pumped straight into the economy and therewith will create jobs.

Well, hey guess what, I'm getting an extra $13 / week and I don't need it.

I will make 75k this year, I made 65k last year. Even the extra 10k in my income has not caused me to feel any more comfortable than I was last year. My spending has actually declined this year over last, despite the extra income. $200 extra per week right now would do ZERO to cause me to spend any more money.

I'm about to win an award at work which comes with a $1500 bonus check...guess what, that money won't do anything to ease my mind either. I'm not going to spend a dime of that money, just like I'm not going to spend a dime of my raise, just like I'm not going to spend a dime of this $13.

I'm 50k upside down on my house, WTF do I care about $13. What's an extra $13 / week going to do when I have a $50,000 gorilla sitting on my back.

There are many more Americans who are going to be sitting on this $13 than spending it. I guarentee it. Which means it will do nothing to help the economy.

I wouldn't come up with this money to distribute to anyone.

No bailouts for anyone.

You can't stimulate someone out of the fear they have.

...and nine months later these people are right back where they started because they didn't save this money, they just "pumped (it) straight into the economy".

Good plan...go with that!

How do you argue this? I'm kind of nonplussed by this assertion.

The stimulus bill gives a total of some $275 billion to families in the form of tax cuts. Though about $70 billion of that is given to upper/middle income families in the form of the AMT patch,* the overwhelming majority of that money is given in the form of tax cuts to lower/middle income families, who will be needing this money in the crisis - they won't just put it under a mattress.

I can see arguing the opposite of what you're saying - divided by individual beneficiary and by month or week, it may not look like much, depending on your standards (though it would be a lot for me, and Chai2 already covered that well). But a sum total of $200-300 billion pumped into the economy in the form of tax breaks will "do virtually nothing for the overall economy"? How does that make sense? It's a lot of money that's pumped into it, isn't it?

(Also, wouldn't you actually be complaining louder still if it had been a larger sum?)**

I actually agree that the (twice as large!) part of the bill that involves actual government spending will be more effective in terms of stimulus, because a part of the tax cut money will just be saved ... but you're still talking about hundreds of billions that will be spent, that's not peanuts.

Meanwhile, of course, there's $500 billion in the stimulus bill that's not tax cuts, and that will have a larger impact still. I still doubt that it will be enough, I would have liked to see a larger package, but it'll go a long way at least in slowing down the economic collapse.

-----

* Note that the AMT patch, the single least effective part of the stimulus bill (and it runs up to 9% of the total package!) is the one thing that the Republican critics of this bill have been pushing hard for themselves.

** This is the part I dont get about conservative criticisms like those in this thread (sorry to lump you under that label on this one, Maporsche). The complaint appears to be: "They're recklessly giving away surreal amounts of money, indebting our children forever - and by the way, it's peanuts, the way the money breaks down by individual tax cut beneficiary!" Isn't that, kinda, well ... contradictory ...?

Most unemployed people actually get back into work within nine months, BigTexN ... and this support will help them survive in the interim. And help unfreeze the economy (and create jobs! the circle is round!) at the same time.

Ahh, so the end of this crisis is nine months from now?

Well, there you have it Wall Street! Mark your calendars!

For those less sure than Nimh...9 mos vs the current 6mos in benefits doesn't really change a thing.

Here's a clue...if unemployment is rising each week, don't you think that the time to find a new job would be extending each week as well?

There's no science behind your nine month number...its as arbitrary as the $800 billion dollar bailout number. Its just another arbitrary number that carries no faith in its objective.

$13/week (dont you love how the critics insist on dividing it into the smallest possible units?) is over $50 a month. Doesn't that help at least somewhat in making the monthly mortgage payment?

I mean, I dunno how large you be livin' - but it'd pay for 1/8th of my rent.

Mind you, I agree that the tax cut part of the package makes less sense, the higher the income groups that get it are. Which is why the AMT patch, for example, even if it's a defensible idea in general, has little to do with stimulus. But ironically, it's these upper brackets of the proposed tax cuts that had to be kept in to keep Republicans like Snowe, Collins and Specter and conservative Dems on board. If it had been up to the liberals inside the Democratic Party, more of the stimulus would have been spent on the poor, and less on the upper/middle class. So it's kind of weird to see this criticism coming from the right, like now in this thread. Smacks of opportunism a bit.

(I mean, seriously - have you seen the alternative "stimulus" plan Sen. DeMint proposed, which 36 of 40 Republican Senators voted for? That has none, zero direct spending on infrastructure, education or whatever, and consists entirely of tax cuts -- and not just any old tax cuts, but tax cuts that are overwhelmingly targeted at the upper-half incomes? Anyone who levels the reproach at Obama that some of his tax cuts won't work because they go to people who won't spend it, has to take a minute to realise here that on this count, the GOP alternative was 1,000 times worse.)

Meanwhile, I'm still unclear about which direction your complaint points to, cause it seems contradictory. You complain that tax cuts for people with incomes like you are a big waste, they wont be spent anyway etc. Right? But you also complain that these tax cuts are peanuts and dont amount to much at all in terms of helping you struggle with the financial gorilla burdening you? So what would you have wanted? To get no tax cut, or to get a larger tax cut that would have been meaningful to you?