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Senate panel pushes stimulus plan ahead
The Senate package adds more help to the bill passed in the House.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A plan to send $500-$1,000 rebates to all but the richest taxpayers advanced in the Senate on Wednesday after Republicans and Democrats teamed to add aid for disabled veterans, the elderly and the unemployed to a House-passed economic recovery bill.
The package would make individuals with annual incomes of up to $150,000 and couples with incomes up to $300,000 eligible for the rebates. Qualifying families would also get $300 for each child.
The Senate Finance Committee approved the measure on a bipartisan vote Wednesday, and senior aides said the Senate could begin voting on it as early as today in hopes of completing it by week’s end. Americans could begin getting rebates in May, with the bulk expected to arrive in June.
The income limits compare with caps of $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 for couples in an economic stimulus bill the House passed Tuesday.
They were part of a bill written by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the Finance Committee chairman, and backed by Charles Grassley of Iowa, the panel’s senior Republican, which would pump $193 billion into the economy over the next two years. The House measure would inject $161 billion.
The Senate plan also would expand rebate eligibility to 20 million older Americans on Social Security and to disabled veterans and tack on an unemployment extension for those whose benefits have run out.
“It helps seniors and it helps those hit hardest by the economic downturn,” Baucus said of his plan.
He said it could win quick approval and be ready for enactment by Feb. 15.
Baucus originally proposed to let even the richest taxpayers share in the rebates, saying that would attract Republican support for his measure. Grassley said that lifting what some Republicans deemed “suffocating income limits” in the House plan was a key reason he was backing the bill.
But Senate Democrats balked at the idea of wealthy people — including lawmakers — getting rebate checks. Baucus’ new proposal expressly bars members of Congress from getting the checks.
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Comments
While I would always like to get a $600 check from the government, I have my doubts about the stimulative value of the rebate.
Our national debt is 9 Trillion dollars, financed by borrowing primarily from China. The idea behind the rebate is to get people to spend that money and stimulate the slowing economy through their spending.
Lower income recipients will use it to pay heating bills and the money will end up in the pockets of the Saudi Arabians. Others will use it to pay down their balance on the credit card, bettering their asset to debt ratio and generating a bit of $$$ for Citibank but not priming the economic pump.
But most middle income families who have kept their debt in check will use it to buy a TV, computer or other consumer electronics. All of these are made in China.
So from where I sit, it looks like the federal government is borrowing from the Chinese so we can stimulate the American economy by buying Made in China consumer goods with our rebate checks. Stimulative??????
Seems to me that economic stimulation can be more immediate by extending unemployment benefits, raising the income limit on food stamps, and providing aid to state and local governments to provide services in this time of increasing demand for public assistance, unemployment compensation, WIC, food stamps, and the like. This would lighten our state and local tax burden for these programs. And the food stamp and unemployment recipients would spend that money immediately on food (primarily made in America) to meet their immdeiate needs.
Long term, we need a trade policy to create good paying jobs at home instead of the Bush policy of subsidizing their export. We need a President who values work more than he worships wealth.