I can't help feeling a Bush and House Accord for $150 Billion Stimulus plan to head of a US/World Recession isn't just too little, it's actually meant to fail - it's like going through the motions without any real substance.
"… including rebates for most tax filers of up to $600 for individuals, $1,200 for couples and, for families, an additional $300 a child."
If I understand rightly, $1500 could be heading my way in a few months - but is that really going to make much of a difference? Even if several million people get similar checks - maybe it could pay one month's rent (if one was lucky) - is that enough to pull the US out a recession? Is it even meant to? I don't think so.
The New York Times reports Strains on the I.R.S. Could Delay Rebate Checks for Months and "…In theory, the first checks may arrive in early May, if nothing goes wrong…" which sounds more like mid summer or early fall - and that will probably be too late.
Meaning, there's not much that can be done - and all of this is just for appearance sake - in fact, a real stimulus package is not being proposed, because I think the people who are in caused this by a lack of oversight, actually want the economic system to collapse and Paul Krugman calls this package a Stimulus Gone Bad.
" …the plan — which essentially consists of nothing but tax cuts and gives most of those tax cuts to people in fairly good financial shape — looks like a lemon."
"…
But the Bush administration has apparently succeeded in killing all of these ideas, in favor of a plan that mainly gives money to those least likely to spend it.
Why would the administration want to do this? It has nothing to do with economic efficacy: no economic theory or evidence I know of says that upper-middle-class families are more likely to spend rebate checks than the poor and unemployed. Instead, what seems to be happening is that the Bush administration refuses to sign on to anything that it can’t call a “tax cut.”
There's only one thing I'd differ with Krugman on - many people appear to being doing much better than they really are - and people who are technically in the middle class are probably struggling and often just getting by. However, they're not as desperate, and the could probably get by without the 1200+ they'd get while the people on the bottom, might not be able to.
I think a stimulus package at least 3 times as large, at minimum and as much as 10 times as large as maximum, is actually, what's needed.
