Keynesian Johnny
Johnny Iskason is pushing for a $15k tax rebate for new home buyers:
Isakson is pitching an idea to his colleagues in Congress: a $15,000 tax rebate check to anyone who agrees to buy a home. Congressional budget analysts project the program would cost $14 billion over the next few years. But Isakson said the rebate checks are well worth the hefty price tag. "If we can convince buyers to come back to the marketplace and buy these houses, then the houses aren't vacant. It's replaced by an owner-occupant, who is there making payments on a loan and helping all of the other houses around."Thoughts?Senate Republican leaders have signed on to the rebate check idea. But they have to corral support from Democrats. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid is instead pushing a foreclosure relief proposal called The Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008, which would offer $4 billion to cities to rehab or knock down foreclosed properties. Reid's Democratic colleague Sen. Bob Casey said, "It's important that we have as much money as possible in the hands of local communities, to get it into communities, where they know how to spend those dollars and help families through this crisis."
Comments
Beam me up Scotty there is no intelligent life here on this planet and the place most infected with stupidity seems to be in a place called Washington DC....
In all seriousness Bob Casey almost has it right . Leave the money in the hands of the local communities...I would change the word communities to the phrase "the people who earned it".
Do the Reids,Caseys,Isaksons,really think they are in touch with the people who actually fund this nation..?
I have serious doubts that the cumulative IQ of the senate would reach 100 and that would be with adding 2 points for the vice president.
Don
Posted by: Don | March 14, 2008 09:08 PM
Just like everything else, the cost of votes has risen as the dollar declines as well.
I wouldn't recommend investing in votes though... I consider them a consumable item. Maybe our elected officials should invest the tax payer's money in gold instead.
The dollar. "Gold is the mirror image of the dollar," says George Milling-Stanley, manager of investment and market intelligence at the World Gold Council. Gold's price rises when the dollar falls. The dollar hit an all-time low against the euro Thursday and fell below 100 yen for the first time since 1995 before closing at 102.04.
If only our founding fathers would have had the forethought to tie our dollar to gold somehow.
Posted by: Daniel N. Adams | March 14, 2008 09:46 PM
$15,000 tax rebate? Makes me wonder if the buyer has to prove they paid in more than $15,000 in order to get the rebate.
Let's see...current account deficit approaching $10 trillion; unfunded future obligations at about $50 trillion; borrowing about $2.7 trillion a year, from numerous lenders; and printing untold amounts of new currency - all while continue to operate in the red. And Johnny I. thinks taxpayers (and future generations, apparently) should be throwing money at people who buy homes - many of whom would be buying anyway, without the incentive?? 'Fiscal irresponsiblity' doesn't begin to describe this insanity. We are becoming the Weimar Republic of the 21st century before our very eyes. In 2000, oil was in the mid $30s per barrel, now we're no longer shocked to see it over $100 a barrel; to say nothing of gold, now over $1000 an ounce. How much longer can this go on until we hit the "tipping point" where the currency crashes? And I heard tonight that Bear Stearns just received a big bailout due to their over-extension of mortgage-backed securities. So the little guy get thrown out in the street, the Wall Streeters get bailed out, and the upwardly mobile get $15,000 cash for buying a house. The government works for whom?
Posted by: Troy Casey | March 14, 2008 10:04 PM
OK, I hate taxes. I hate a government that works to control a free market. It is also true that the economy is dropping like a rock.
Tax rebates are ok so long as it is returning money to those who were taxed in equal amounts to begin with. Even an added bump for interst lost while the government held their money.
Stimulus packages are geared toward putting money into an economy the government screwed up in the first place.
Lower the tax rates and amounts deemed 'necessary' to operate the legitimate functions of government. Allow people to keep more of their own money, invest or spend as they deem necessary.
deficit approaching $10 trillion; unfunded future obligations at about $50 trillion; borrowing about $2.7 trillion a year, from numerous lenders; and printing untold amounts of new currency - all while continue to operate in the red.
That is the problem.
Posted by: Larry Stanley | March 15, 2008 08:43 AM
Larry
You have incorrectly assumed that the government has a desire to be legitimate and allow the citizens to keep control of that which is theirs.
The government has but one purpose and that is to grow and control so it can continue to grow. You do understand that if I am not dependent on you to take care of some if not all of my needs then you have no control over me.
The government controls out of fear not out of service. People who have not made provisions for themselves will a