Posted by
Glen Albrethsen on Wednesday, February 06, 2008 9:55:45 PM
First off, I'm not for a stimulus package that includes any kind of rebate check, unless it also includes significant cuts in the federal government and is thus paid for by the cuts.
That said, Congress is giving me another reason to hate a big, lumbering federal government.
The stimulus package that passed the House last week, while not small, seemed more focused and certainly less costly. Now, with the Senate meddling with it, the package has ballooned to over $200 billion in an attempt to make sure that the hardest hit, the poor, get something out of it, too.
Well, I vote they stall it forever.
It's not that I agree with Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee about where the rebate money might go--to China, since a lot of what we buy says Made In China on it. Unless you're purchasing it online direct from the manufacturer, most likely the money spent on the Made In China item will go partly to the retailer--Target, Walmart, etc., and to the American company who has moved their jobs overseas and set up a manufacturing plant in China with cheap labor and virtually non-existent labor laws.
In other words, it might get to China eventually, but not directly.
If Huckabee's talking about American workers benefiting, well, he has a point. Unless you're going to buy a higher ticket item, like a car, or a house, or something like that, chances are, the Made in America label won't be on it.
Even parts for cars come assembled or made from different places before they are together into the finished product, so even that may eventually get back to Mexico or other places.
Still, if people are really hurting, which there may be some, then wouldn't it be more likely that their rebate money would go to the necessities--food and utilities--or to paying off those credit cards they overindulged on this past Christmas? In my case, most likely I'd use a rebate check to offset the income tax I'll likely owe from 2007.
It's a waste, really. The federal government is supposed to be limited in what it does. Provide for the national defense, improve relations with foreign sovereignties, broker trade deals, help out in the case of natural disasters, the post office, things of that nature. One could argue for the Food and Drug Administration and other uniform kind of things, but other than that, our President and Congress really shouldn't have that much to do.
Seriously. How does the government stimulate the economy? Sending us back money which was ours in the first place? Money that apparently isn't needed because they can give it back to us? (I know, we're borrowing money from China, but still.) I'd just as soon there be no tax. So, they can keep their rebates, thank you very much. Then I wouldn't be paying for the paper, the ink, the labor and the mailing of 100 million checks.
Now, the rest of the package, the tax cuts, those are fine. And as long as a part of the federal government goes with it, so it's all paid for, that's great, too.
Otherwise, it doesn't do us any good, and will only prolong the economic trouble we're in.