Rob Karas, 39, of Haymarket, Va., expects to receive a tax rebate of $2,400 this spring. It’s a nice-sized amount, but don’t look to the Karas family to stimulate the economy. Karas, an information security expert, plans to invest $1,200 in retirement savings for himself and his wife. The remaining $1,200, he says, will go straight into college savings accounts for his four children, ages 1 through 11. He had considered using the money to take his family to Disney World. But “With the uncertainty of the economy,” Karas says, “right now, I’m going to forget I got that money and put it in mutual funds.”
That’s not exactly what the Bush administration wants to hear. Starting in early May, more than 130 million Americans — or at least, those who have filed a tax return by the deadline at midnight Tuesday night — will receive tax rebates ranging from $300 to $600, or $1,200 for married couples, plus $300 for each dependent child. The rebates, which represent a one-time cut in 2008 tax rates, were intended to help rescue the economy from recession by encouraging consumer spending. A similar rebate program in 2001 was widely credited with curtailing that year’s recession.
I will use the rebate to recoup what I have paid in taxes today, April 15th. I guess I am not the ideal recipient.
I’m thinking of spending mine on hookers and blow. Probably not what the Bushies expect either.
I guess I’m one of the “privileged” families who earns (slightly) more than $150k pays a chunk of that in taxes and gets nothing to stimulate anything…
It’s disappointing (to me) that those who earn the money and pay the taxes get their money redistributed to those who don’t in such a blatant election year gimmick.
Maybe Atlas does need to shrug–and soon.
I’m gonna do exactly what the government doesn’t want me to do, take care of some bills.
#2–abe==you are really going to get pissed when you raise you head out of the muck and realize how much of “your money” actually goes to those making 10 times as much.
Hating the poor for how well off they are. Good Republican.
It will buy me a tank of gas to get to work for another week. I do plan to spend anything left, you know like buy something from China to boost their economy. The only job left in the US is running Bush’s dollar bill printing machine, which is making every dollar you have saved over a lifetime even more worthless.
I am going to pay off some debt. Sorry, George but
I am unemployed and not able to buy that China made big screen t/v to stimulate the China economy. Oh! Wait, I am supposed to stimulate the American economy. I guess George should have let me know what is made in this country I could purchase. It was sad one day I noticed a “Buy American” sign. Guess where it was made???
#4- Spot on. And had he bothered to read the mailer, he’d see that folks with no income are getting bupkiss.
On a more general note, I think even if every single recipient invests the money or catches up on bills it will benefit the economy. We’ll be using ours to pay off the credit cards and get some breathing space. I think that’s a more reliable sort of consumer confidence than blowing the money on imported electronics!
Rebate? Rebate? I don’t get no steenking rebate!
#2 i’m not getting any money back either, but you know what? i’d rather not live in the tax bracket that does get one — do you?
people always cry like babies when someone else gets something good. why don’t you just be happy that you don’t have to worry about paying for groceries?
sheesh.
Jennifer (#7),
It may benefit the economy a very tiny bit today, but that $130 billion is borrowed money. Great my kids are paying interest on that debt as we type…
# 2 abe vigoda
Oh abe shut up. I’m not getting a rebate either. You and I both know that we don’t pay much in the first place so quit with the whinny “the poor took my money” nonsense.
How about that $44,000 per man, woman, and child in America that went to fund the Iraq war. I bet if we got that money back as a rebate the economy would be stimulated. And we wouldn’t be stuck in Iraq with men and women dying. Just a thought.
This is what happens when the inmates run the asylum.
Simply put, in 2001/02 in the wake of the World Trade Center catastrophe, Alan Greenspan proposed an infusion of cash to stimulate an economy that was shocked into saving instead of spending. It worked because it was the right solution at the right time to the right problem.
The knuckleheads in the current administration don’t get that what ails the economy now is not an immediate and concise event, but rather a slow burn that an instant infusion of cash just won’t solve. This situation has been too long coming to see that $600 per person will rectify it.
This country doesn’t need an infusion of cash, it needs an infusion of home economics 101 and priorities. For too many years people have lived far above and beyond their means, and now it’s coming back to bite them in their collective asses.
I don’t know of one person that has lived within their means that is worried about their economics quite the same way that people are freaking out about that haven’t. Quite simply, the old adage still stands, these people are reaping that which they have sown, and now it’s not their fault and someone needs to bail THEM out.
The last rebate did not help either.
But you know Americans…
They have no long term memory.
This is why we repeat history over and over.
Cursor_
I will spend it on whatever that girl wants.
What “Rebate” ??? It just “Gas Stamps” for Mobil/Exxon !!! You know the Oil Giant who, desipte reporting RECORD HISTORICAL CORPORATE PROFITS – QUARTER AFTER QUARTER – CLAIMS THEY “ARE NOT GOUGING AT THE GAS PUMPS !!! Yeah, right !!!
New tires for the hot rod.
#13 – “For too many years people have lived far above and beyond their means, and now it’s coming back to bite them in their collective asses.”
Kinda like gov’t? Except when they “live above their means” they just stick it to us with more taxes. The gov’t leaders set the example, good or bad…
My friend has been accused of being an eco-terrorist, I intend to donate my money to her defense fund. Is that what Bush and Co. had in mind?
For #4 Loving the rich for how well off they aren’t. Bad Bad Democrat…NOW GET DOWN OFF THE SOFA, YOU BAD BAD DOG!
Gonna spend it like a drunken sailor in this Boom Economy that came about from our President’s wise investment in the Iraqi Freedom & Peace Dividend that’s paying us back in cheap oil for the US of A! 🙂
“We’ll liberate anybody, anywhere, anytime for a fix of oil.”
“We’ll liberate anybody, anywhere, anytime for a fix of oil.”
Are you comparing Uncle Sam to a crack whore? He resembles that remark.
Ironically, I have to spend mine on property taxes!
In an odd turn for the Feds, they’re not going to count your tax rebate as taxable income…but, they continue to tax people’s paltry unemployment checks, go figure.
#18 – “Kinda like gov’t? Except when they “live above their means” they just stick it to us with more taxes. The gov’t leaders set the example, good or bad…”
The “gov’t” is us. When we let the politicians (that we voted for) spend above their means, it means they are spending more money than they collect in taxes.
They can either cut spending, or increase taxes. And, so far, the only thing the voters have been telling them is “neither”.
I’m donating it to the church – fuck it, just kidding!
I will send my rebate check back to the government and tell them to use it to pay off the debt that they have incurred. Either that, or put it into my IRA.
No way will I do what King George wants me to do with it, and spend it!
Shoot, he told us after 9/11 to “go shopping.” The guy has about as much sense as a sack of doorknobs!
#24 – “They can either cut spending, or increase taxes. And, so far, the only thing the voters have been telling them is “neither”.”
Actually the dems were voted in on the platform of cutting off the $ for Iraq and getting out. So, the voters spoke and the newly elected congress ignored. Granted we will have to vote them out as they lied… Time to go back to campaigning for new reps…
I was looking at a nice laptop the other day with a great rebate offer. I didn’t buy it but I think I’ll still send in for the $100 rebate. Sounds fair to me.
#2 – It’s disappointing (to me) that those who earn the money and pay the taxes get their money redistributed to those who don’t…
Sorry… what? Those who make 50K… 35K… 28K… are not “earning”?
Just because you drew the lucky numbers in the good fortune lottery doesn’t mean those who are not gifted with a comfortable life are less entitled.
Wealth is generated by the wealthy by exploiting the labor of the poor. One thing I can tell you about the working poor and lower middle class is this… they typically work harder than everybody else.
#29 -“doesn’t mean those who are not gifted with a comfortable life are less entitled.”
So people are entitled to a comfortable life? Really? Are people entitled to a BMW? Why or why not? You are entitled to money I make? Really? Give me your wallet.