Posted by caraher on April 12, 2008, at 11:58:55
In reply to Re: m*th*rf*ck*r part III » karen_kay, posted by seldomseen on April 12, 2008, at 9:19:45
> I wonder, with that tax incentive thing where everyone in the country gets 600 dollars, can we just pay 600 dollars less on our taxes?
>
> Seems right to me.
>
> What do you think?If they did that, it would deprive politicians of the opportunity to send you a check along with a letter reminding you that they're doing you such a great favor. (In any event, the $600 is just borrowing money for our grandchildren to pay interest on... remember when the US briefly had balanced budgets? Ah, those were the days...)
So just shaving it off your taxes would defeat the true purpose of showering borrowed dollars on the electorate. And never mind the talk about economic stimulus; most people will pay down their existing debt, not binge on new spending. If the true purpose were to stimulate the economy the money would have been directed either toward folks below the poverty line (whether or not they owed taxes) since they have no choice but to spend it or directly on some worthy program sure to create jobs. (I know one physicist who suggested, with no expectation of anything like this happening, that the government should just give every practicing physicist in academia $1 million to spend on their research; certainly the experimental physicists would all spend the money very quickly and on things that create better jobs than burger flipping...) Seems to me we could use that money to boost alternative energy research - or perhaps on big tax incentives to switch to cleaner energy. Or as a friend of mine suggested, on schools.
poster:caraher
thread:822351
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20080329/msgs/822859.html