Still Misunderstanding The Economic Stimulus Package

LRNs thinks I missed the point in my previous post. Or at least he thinks I avoided the point.

Thing is I didn’t miss it nor skip it. I disagree with the entire premise of his statement that “These rebates are not for us. They are for the economy”. I stated what I think the rebates are for…they are for the corporations to keep making money, the economy be damned.  And the way the stock markets responded to the news pretty much bears me out.

We, as a country, have stopped using our homes as credit cards. In many many cases we’ve lost our home completely due to ARMs whose rates have risen to their highest possible values (for this year) and crushed the people under the mortgages that they shouldn’t have been offered in the first place. There isn’t a free flow of cash to buy that next HDTV and there isn’t the feeling (here’s those feelings he was talking about) that that cash will be coming back anytime soon.

Want to read something scary? Check out this article on our debt to China. It’ll dissuade you of the notion that this is a moderate downturn in the economy.

BTW, I think it is really cool that The Atlantic Monthly is opening up their archives (all the way back to the 1800’s). I assure you I will be linking to more stuff from there. And this is one of the  magazines I read cover to cover each month…it takes a month to get through it. Smart writing written as though smart people might want to learn something. Much different than Newsweek and Time have become.

But back to LRNs’s post.  If this stimulus package was for the economy it would have some longer reaching parts than $300-$1800.  So that gives a shot in the arm to the economy for a month, maybe three…what happens when the economy starts slipping again?  Send out another $1000 to everyone?  What happened to the ‘end of the welfare state’?  If Republicans do it it isn’t welfare?

What we need is to retract ALL of the Bush tax cuts.  Yes, even the ones that help me and my family.  Then we need to look into what will assist the middle class (what little there is left of a middle class) to make it through a year without worrying about their mortgage payments vs food.

How you say?  What about Universal Healthcare so that even people who are sick and then lose their jobs are covered without a break?  How about a real investment in non-oil energy consumption so we can stop planning for $4.00 gas or $3.00 apples?  How about an education plan that actually doesn’t leave children behind so the teachers can stop training our children to beat a test and start training them to compete in a global economy?  How about getting us out of Bush’s War to Prove His Balls Are Bigger Than His Dad’s?  Iraq is a failed state.  There is nothing that can be done about it.  We, as a country, let this happen. We, as a country, should have to pay.  Oh, and impeach Cheney, then Bush, then indite everyone in Haliburton.

There are things we should be doing.  There are things that SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED WHEN WE TOOK BACK CONGRESS!  And these things better happen pretty damn quick when we take back the White House in November. (well, I’ll give them until February since the inauguration isn’t until January)  But a pittance hand out to a large set of country making almost $100k over the median household income is at best insulting.  At worst it is akin to Marie-Antoinette’s “let them eat cake” (BTW, likely apocryphal) statement.

Spending this ‘windfall’ will do nothing to assist the economy long-term; the markets will have already taken it into account.  Saving it will do something to assist YOU long-term.  This country has an abysmal savings rate perhaps this could jump start your IRA…I hear Roth’s can take in as much as $5k next year.

But, whatever you do, don’t let ANYONE make you feel unpatriotic for NOT spending YOUR money.  We are a country at war for the past 5 years.  And all we’ve been asked to do is ‘go shopping’.  Well, some of us have been asked to fight and die for a Yalie with a serious Oedipal complex.  But overall there has been little suffering due to the actions of the Bush Administration.  Let’s hope that the coming pain will be attributed to the correct sources.

I know I won’t let anyone forget.  😉

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