Senate Passes $170 Billion Economic Stimulus Package
According to an AP report: The economic plan that would give $600 to $1,200 in rebates to most taxpayers and $300 checks to low-income people, including disabled veterans and the elderly.
- The rebates would be based on 2007 tax returns, which are not due until April 15. People who paid no income taxes but earned at least $3,000 - including through Social Security or veterans’ disability benefits - would get a $300 rebate.
WASHINGTON (CNN) The Senate Thursday passed by an overwhelming margin an approximately $170 billion economic stimulus package.
- The Senate accord — reached after days of bickering and passed by 81-16 — keeps the House-passed rebate check amounts of $300 to $600 for people who have an income between $3,000 and $75,000, plus $300 per child.
- Couples earning up to $150,000 would get $1,200.
But the plan also gives checks to more than 20 million Social Security beneficiaries and 250,000 handicapped veterans and their widows.
“I’m very happy that the vast majority of the U.S. Senate agreed that we have to change the economic direction of this country, and we’ve done that,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, told reporters.
But he expressed dismay that the package omits a number of provisions Democrats had sought, including an extension of unemployment benefits and checks for people aided by the food stamp program and the low-income home energy assistance program, measures that Senate Republicans and President Bush opposed.
“They’re following this president right off a cliff,” Reid said. “What they don’t realize is he’s already over the cliff.”
Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said he was happy with the outcome: “I think we’ve demonstrated to the American people that we are, once in a while, able to come together and do something important to the country with a minimum amount of bipartisan bickering and do it in a timely fashion.”
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February 7th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
You explained the stimulus package with exceptional clarity. As always, a well-researched blog that I know others will find as helpful as I did.
February 9th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
OpEdna:
Nice to see you. Glad to help explain the screwed up ways of our government.
February 10th, 2008 at 3:03 am
In an earlier posting ( http://blueboomerhd.blogspot.com/) about the economy I compared the current sub-prime mortgage fiasco to the S&L disappearing act of 1986, because both problems were related to home loans gone bad. Why do home loans go bad? Because some of the loans are structured to sucker folks, who might not ordinarily qualify for such a loan, into a deal that will imminently be most profitable for the lender. I recently learned that, once in such an arrangement, the homeowner has no recourse if a lender is not willing to re-finance to more affordable (read: less profitable) terms. Bankruptcy allows the court to restructure a wide variety of kinds of secured debt, but not debt secured by a home (even if it is a person’s primary residence).
The Emergency Home Ownership and Mortgage Equity Protection Act being considered by Congress would allow the court to change the terms and conditions of debt secured by the debtor’s home. This Act would allow the Bankruptcy Court temporary power to deal with this type of secured debt, but I would suggest that this type of authority be granted to said courts permanently. If this had been the case since the 1980’s both the S&L fiasco and this sub-prime mortgage driven, economic recession might have been averted.
The aforementioned, pending Act of Congress would be real assistance to those in need, and it would not cost the US Treasury any money. The current plan, to return tax money to citizens, adds substantially to the federal government’s enormous debt while getting money into the hands of people who don’t need it. Even if all the refunded monies were spent immediately it wouldn’t help the economy. More important, the cash would be no help at all to those with the most urgent need.
February 10th, 2008 at 8:37 am
Stephen Wyman:
Well put. The other item many don’t realize is the check they will receive is really an advance one their 2008 tax. If someones 2009 refund is $500.00 and they received $300 from the 2008 economic package, their total refund would be 200.00. This is the same scam that Bush ran in 2001.
March 7th, 2008 at 4:03 am
I don’t think the stimulus package will work. A $600 check which equals about 2% of the average persons income is not going to fix the economy. Since this money is coming from thin air it will actually hurt the economy.