I just wanted to give a big “thank you” to all the democrats and republicans out there who passed the new stimulus bill and gave me a tax break.
The $13 a week that it provides me from June until about January will provide me with enough money to pay almost half my gasoline bill, which has certainly been weighing on me.
Of course, it does little to make my rent easier to swallow, or the ridiculous cost of heating my apartment any better, or make my job any more secure.
Working in Detroit, a ghost town before the layoffs, I feel a negligent corporation that has killed off hundreds of my family and friends is trying to appease me with a pittance.
As we try to put our lives back together, they step up and say, “I know times are hard, but this should help. Here’s a hundred bucks. No need to thank me.”
How about, instead of spending billions of dollars to give every single (WORKING) American 13 bucks a week, put those billions into hiring a few hundred thousand NON-WORKING Americans.
Seriously, I’ll find a way to pay for my own gas.
I was thinking about the people who work at the day care and the bookstore where I do bookkeeping. Because they already pay very little tax, due to earning very little money, the only way they will get a meaningful tax break is to reduce the Social Security and Medicare tax rates. None of the lawmakers brought that up in any of the current discussions, and it’s the most regressive tax we have (it cuts out after one earns $106,000, rather than increasing).
Meanwhile, an economy is a process, and a key element was that money was getting stuck in the banks. The economy as a whole can only work if money flows through the banks. When banks stop lending, there’s a problem – and frankly, one should pull one’s money out, since apparently it’s now being used to pay expenses, rather than to make loans which will generate income. I need to go write a blog entry about that….