Out walking one night I came upon an alley, and when I looked down it I saw a bunch of thugs beating the hell out of my Uncle Sam. The thugs saw me and came toward me. I was way too much in shock and awe to run. One of the thugs reached into his pocket and handled me $600 and told me to get lost. I took the money and ran.
That’s what the Bush administration and congress did on Thursday to the people of the United States. The president thinks that borrowing an estimated 150 billion dollars and throwing it at the people will solve the economic problems of this country. How?
Well we’ll find out on January 28th with his last State of the Union address. Now like presidential candidate John McCain I can tell you I don’t understand economics, but I think I have some common sense.
Some of the details of the speech seem to involve households receiving tax rebates of between $300- $1,200 and $300 for each child that they have. Another part of the package involves tax cuts for businesses, giving firms incentives to invest in new facilities, development, upgrades, employment,…. Small companies will see lenient laws on expense write offs, and companies in financial difficulties will get rebates for taxes already paid.
If the expectation is that the average citizen will go out and buy more “toys” manufactured in China, who probably will finance the borrowed $150 billion, I truly hope they are wrong. The best thing anyone could do with this “one-time rebate” is pay off bills or sock it away. If we are in so much trouble as a nation, then throwing more borrowed money at it won’t work.
If we all go out and spend this “one-time” rebate on more consumer goods, who benefits? It’s not the person buying this stuff – it’s the corporations and stock holders! Unless you plan on going into a Wal-Mart or Target and buying products manufactured in the USA --- well, first off good luck finding something made in the United States.
That’s the point! That rebate money won’t even go back into your community! If there’s unemployment, housing, and infra-structure problems going on, the money should be put into programs to solve these issues, so people will have financial security to purchase more toys.
No wait – that’s a Franklin Roosevelt concept. This is an administration and congress that prefers Herbert Hoover. They prefer to sell off everything like a yard sale.
Maybe looking at it from a religious perspective would be better because our government loves that; you can give a person a fish to eat or teach him to fish.
Jake Drew
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Sunday, January 27, 2008
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