What do you think is the real reason for the one-time tax rebates that we'll be getting?

Are they really trying to pump the billions back into the economy to stave off the recession? Or, is it some other sneaky political reason?

In my opinion, the real reason is that the politicians expect the people to actually think that the money will do a great deal of good. They have ample reason to expect this. In the past, the people have been fooled that getting a little bit of money back from the government is a great deal. Few stop to think of where that money comes from, and how it is going to be replaced. (Remember that the government operates on
a a deficit, that is it spends more money than it takes in. It doesn't take Einstein to see that someone is going to have to make up for that money. Guess who it's going to be.) Since the mean family income in the US is just under $60,000, the $600 per taxpayer ($1200 per family) amounts to a one-time 2% bonus. While it will certainly help some people, it is most certainly not going to solve the economic problems facing the US today, and, if bush and the House of Representatives get their way, those too poor to pay income tax won't get a dime. Neither will many senior citizens.

The Roman emperors had a term for this type of pandering to the public. It was called "Bread and Circuses."

From Wikipedia -

"Bread and circuses" is a phrase that can criticize either government policies to pacify the citizenry, or the shallow, decadent desires of that same citizenry. In both cases, it refers to low-cost, low-quality, high-availability food and entertainment that have become the sole concern of the People, to the exclusion of matters that some consider more important: e.g. the Arts, public works projects, human rights, or democracy itself. The phrase is commonly used to refer to short-term government palliatives offered in place of a solution for significant, long-term problems.

http://www.examiner.com/a-1165999~Tax_Rebates_Could_Boost_Economy_Quickly.html

Here is an excellent article that explains why the Stimulous Package is a good idea & why it will work.

I have run across many blogs that are obviously politically motivated against the President's plan. Funny thing though. They have a tendency to end up showing the benefits of why rebates work.

Even if we end up getting a rebate, $1200 per family isn't a whole lot. It might help with groceries for a few weeks, or pay down some credit cards, or make a house payment, but it's not going to encourage me to go out and buy a new car, and it certainly won't save anyone whose house is being foreclosed on. Once you use it, it's gone. It's a candy lifesaver that melts away, not a real saver of lives.

L.Rodd's link points out that money given to the less well-off gets back into the economy faster. While tax rebates are OK, therefore, it would be more effective to increase unemployment relief, for example. As Elexina points out, nobody much is going to go on a spending spree with a $1000 tax rebate; everyone can see a recession coming. The very poor, on the other hand, would have to spend the money.

'This is why in every recession since 1958, Congress has enacted a temporary extension of unemployment benefits beyond the customary 26 weeks of payments made by states. The stopgap benefits keep families afloat during times when jobs are scarce and the duration of a jobless period can lengthen well beyond six months.

The money flows quickly through a system that’s already in place—no new bureaucracy is needed to dispense it. The cash goes to people who have been directly affected by the downturn, not to those who may never really feel the pinch. That’s why the Congressional Budget Office recently rated extending unemployment benefits (along with temporarily enhancing food stamp benefits) the most efficient and effective of the ideas proposed for inclusion in an economic stimulus package.

Looking back on the experiences of long-term unemployment insurance recipients during the recession of 2001, for example, the CBO found that average family income was half of what it had been when a recipient was working. About a third of these families saw their incomes fall below the poverty line, and 40 percent lacked health insurance. Mark Zandi of Moody’s Economy.com has estimated that every $1 increase in unemployment insurance benefits generates a short-term boost of $1.64 in gross domestic product.

Unemployment insurance is such a surefire way to get money to people who will spend it immediately that, historically, it has been called an “automatic stabilizer.”

Now House Republican leaders are calling it “extraneous spending.”..

...there isn’t anything logical about agreeing that low-wage workers need a break, while somehow the unemployed do not. Unemployment insurance isn’t welfare. It’s not pork-barrel spending or any sort of boondoggle. It is designed precisely for times like these, when workers are laid off and can’t easily find new work because of overall economic sluggishness.'
www.truthdig.com

The political sneakiness that Honilov asks about maybe lies in the calculation that the unemployed won't be voting Republican anyway, but relatively poor wage-earners might.

Hi Gang:

Government has NO money of its own.

The only money government has ,is that which they must first take FROM you ,in the form of taxes.

When government offers to give you money back[rebates],they must first take it from you ,in the form of more and higher taxes.

If you don't pay taxes ,you have no right to expect a rebate from the government.You didn't pay anything in .Any rebate would have to come out of taxes paid by someone else.

hippolips

So what you are saying, Hippo, is that the poor, even the working poor, don't deserve a break. Neither do the seniors living on Social Security, some of whom used to have a good pension before some company's bankruptcy. Nice, really nice.

Hi dg:

I never said that the poor don't deserve a break...those are your words not mine.

Don't put your words into my mouth.

I was talking about how government gets its money and how it is distributed.

Show me where anything I said is untrue.

hippolips

The US government is sending people cheques? So they admit they've taxed the people too much in the first place, do they?

Doesn't have the hallmarks of responsible fiscal policy, does it ? Has more of the air of a panic measure to quieten or brighten the populace: 'bread and circuses', as said.

(The only payment we get off the British Revenue is when they admit they've charged us too much, either through their own error or ours. We'll wait a while. They nearly always have the correct excuse that they can legally hold the sum as credit against what we owe them and which is due to be paid shortly )

I didn't accuse you of saying anything untrue, Hippo, so why are you defending yourself? I only commented on a statement you made. You said

If you don't pay taxes ,you have no right to expect a rebate from the government."

and I responded as I did. You were the one who said that those who pay no taxes don't deserve a rebate. I just rephrased what you said, but I did not change what you meant, unless you meant something other than what you said.

quote:

If you don't pay taxes ,you have no right to expect a rebate from the government.You didn't pay anything in .Any rebate would have to come out of taxes paid by someone else.

Wouldn't that also apply to the earned income tax credit? That seems like a very successful program that has reduced the welfare rolls and encouraged people to work in many low-paid jobs.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/thecrypt/0108/Lou_Dobbs_a...may_get_rebates.html

An article by Lou Dobbs, the subject being illegal immigrants wil be getting rebates as well. Yesterday I listened to Bill O'Reilly discussing this. He wanted to discuss this with who put this in the bill. Funny thing is he could not find out who it was. Nobody wants to claim it.

If the purpose is to stimulate the economy, what does it matter who gets the cash - so long as they're poor and likely to go straight to the store with it? Worrying about who's deserving or not is just going to delay things and waste money on administration costs.