[Perdogg]

We need lower tax rates on income, capitals gains and dividends, lower individual tax rates and lower corporate tax rates. In fact, we need a single 15% rate on all income.

We definitely don’t need more hand outs on food stamps and unemployment compensation.

[palmer]

Nothing BS about it. Temporary borrowing to fuel consumption is the worst way to stimulate the economy, helps China more than it helps us.

[Hardastarboard]

Some times I think we'd have been better off electing Al Gore in 2000. The 9/11 attacks would have happened on his watch, so that it would have been apparent that Democrat policies are the real reason for the terrorists attacking us. Gore's subsequent mismanagement of that event and the economic damage it caused would have made him a one termer.

His lousy popularity because of 9/11 and his overall bizarreness, which would have become apparent even to the most brain dead voter once he was the President, would have led to a Republican landslide in the Congress, strengthening our hold on both houses.

The only variable would have been who would have been the Republican nominee in 2004. Whoever it ended up being could still have been a disaster.

W's only real accomplishments have been keeping the terrorists at bay (a major, key accomplishment, don't get me wrong), and appointing two conservative judges to the Supreme Court (ditto). Other than that, we might as well have had a Democrat in the White House.

[Moonman62]

President Bush doesn’t like to admit he’s made mistakes. But if White House chatter about an economic stimulus package is true, the president is about to repeat a misstep made early in his first term.

I’m talking about the 2001 tax rebates -- government handouts that arrived in the mail. Individuals got $300 and married couples received $600 -- all in hopes of stimulating the economy.

The writer is correct. W has always been economically ignorant and disinterested. Apparently he hasn't learned much either. The only reason W got a second term was congressman Bill Thomas took control of the 2003 tax cut and economic stimulus bill.

[9YearLurker]

Again, no BS here. The great Milton Friedman made this very point and past experience has confirmed it.

Here I give credit to Romney’s proposed solution, though of course in the best case he can’t do anything about it until ‘09. Romney has taken this herd-mentality demand and responded to it with solid, permanent tax cuts. If only W would have seen to do the same—and pair it with budget cuts!

[metesky]

What the hell happened to Town Hall?

A supposedly conservative site arguing against giving us back some of our own money. Nice. Real nice.

I'm starting to look forward to the shellacking the Republican Party takes in the fall.

[wny]

I agree something like this won’t do much. you wan’t real stimulus? cut taxes, regulations, kill all the lawyers. but I’ll still take the check. it’s my money and i want it back. only checks to people who don’t pay taxes are “handouts”. this guy’s got the demhole /libhole mentality that it’s the governments money

[Cobra64]

It's not BS. It's a gimmick.

"Buy my snake oil. It cures all that ails ya."

.

Cut entitlement programs and taxes.

[longtermmemmory]

and tax cuts don’t work.

and the surge can’t work.

this is just a stop gap, we need this BUT MORE IMPORTANT we need PERMANENT TAX CUTS.

[OCCASparky]

Uh, does this asshat realize that it’s not the government’s money, IT’S OURS AND ALWAYS WAS???

[ontap]

This whole thing is just away to adjust for the price of gas increase. What they need to do is put pressure on OPEC to increase production and start drilling off shore and ANWAR.

[Mark was here]

Why don’t they simply print everyone $10,000?

This will surely help everyone out and boost the economy!

Another positive is that it is a more honest way to stimulate the economy than lowering interest rates!

[CarryingOn]

This rebate business is all about trying to out-Democrat the Democrats. Can’t be done by the way. A little walking around money in your pocket plays to our increasingly uneducated society. If you offered a 10 year old the choice of a handful of cash or helping the company his father works for, he would more than likely choose the video game money. Politicians understand that our society in general is steadily moving toward the educationally level of a 10 year old.

[Condor51]

I think the rebates should be 'targeted' to where it will do the most good...

• Married Conservatives (not 'republicans') get $3,000.00 so they can buy some Stocks.. or more Guns & Ammo.
• Open Border 'Moderates' get $800 - BUT they have to designate it be turned over to an Illegal Alien. (So they really get zero.)
• Leftists, oops, Democrats, have to PAY $1,000.00 each to the US Treasury because 1) they hate 'tax cuts' and 2) don't think we're taxed enough to begin with.

I'm faxing my idea to Dubya as I type :-)

[L98Fiero]

Well, as a show of protest, when ya’ll get your checks, just sign them on the back and send them over to L98Fiero.

[Travis McGee]

An "economic stimulus package, or as Bush put it, "a shot in the arm," is the same as giving a junkie another shot of heroin, instead of painfully getting him off dope.

Yes, it makes the addict feel better for a short while, but it worsens his condition in the long run.

Keynes famously said about this, "In the long run we're all dead." Keynes was a bachelor. This is fine if you don't mind screwing your children and the next generation.

"Bartender, I'll have another stimulus pakij. Put it on my kid's tab."

"There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as a result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved."

~~Ludwig von Mises

[Sprite518]

Sorry, but I agree with the writer. We were giving checks to people that did not pay taxes. In other words a government redistribution of money. Now I love the drop in the taxes, but not the checks to everyone.

[Brilliant]

I agree with this. We need lower tax rates. Handouts won’t do much. On the other hand, to blame it on Bush is pretty ridiculous. He doesn’t control the Congress. The Democrats do, just as they did during the 2001 recession.

And that ought to be a clue to why we’re apparently going to have a recession. Does anyone other than me notice that everytime the Democrats take control of Congress, a recession starts shortly thereafter?

[RightWhale]

First of all it’s not a handout but a non-collection of revenue with a touch of redistribution, and secondly what would be the effect of transferring $100 billion of private debt to public debt?