The fate of $600-$1,200 rebate checks for more than 100 million Americans is in limbo after Senate Democrats failed Wednesday to add $44 billion in help for the elderly, disabled veterans, the unemployed and big business to the House-passed economic aid package.
Republicans banded together to block the $205 billion plan from advancing Wednesday, leaving Democrats with a difficult choice either to quickly accept a House bill they have said is inadequate or risk being blamed for delaying a measure designed as a swift shot in the arm for the lagging economy.
The tally was 58-41 to end debate on the Senate measure, just short of the 60 votes Democrats would have needed to scale procedural hurdles and move the bill to a final vote. In a suspenseful showdown vote that capped days of partisan infighting and procedural jockeying, eight Republicans – four of them up for re-election this year – joined Democrats to back the plan, bucking GOP leaders and President Bush, who objected to the costly add-ons.
The $44,000,000,000 addition to the rebate package will seem ‘a drop in the bucket’ if the Deomocrats control both the legislative and the executive branches of our federal government.
My oldest son is a 100% disabled veteran who isn’t required to pay taxes. He does not deserve a rebate that he didn’t earn. Rebates are a return of money paid, not a ‘gift program.’
Remember the “peace dividend” after the fall of the USSR? Well that peace dividend resulted in a myopic and temporally short-sighted reduction of our armed forces that resulted in large-scale ‘call ups’ our National Guard and Reserve forces.
who has been in charge of the government the last 8 years? the republicans have done a stellar job of running our economy into the ground. either party hasn’t done so well with fiscal responsibility but perhaps the republicans are worse, in my view anyway, because they had a clean slate to begin with. they have had their share of plump pork.
either way one looks at it this package is a bad idea because there isn’t any money to pay for it, it is all going to our ever expanding debt load. the politicians and our citizens don’t want to face the fact that we are going to have to pay the piper for having lived beyond our means for soooo very long.
#2..I certainly agree with you magnolia.
Anglican First, I am a missionary living in Central America, and I file my tax return every year. However, I am earning below the poverty level in the U.S., so I don’t pay taxes. And, since I don’t pay taxes, I don’t expect a tax rebate.
Are you sure your son would receive a tax rebate, or are you simply assuming?