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Politics & ReligionWell Since every damn forum has one. Might as well leave it out there. This place is loosely moderated and should not be entered if you're weak of heart.
House leaders and the White House reached tentative agreement today on a roughly $145 billion economic stimulus package that would quickly send payments to the poor and middle class while offering businesses one-time incentives to invest in new equipment and write off tax losses.
The deal, reached after an arduous, late-night negotiation between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., was a work of difficult compromise. Democrats acceded to Republican demands, jettisoning plans to extend unemployment benefits and food stamps for now but concluding that they could revisit the issue if the economy continues to slide.
Republicans agreed to offer rebates as large as $1,000, even to working families that earn too little to pay income tax, an idea they had roundly rejected in past stimulus plans.
"When all the numbers are tallied, this will be the most progressive economic package we have seen in years," said a senior House Democrat.
Boehner authored provisions that would allow faster tax write-offs for corporate investment and immediate tax deductions for small-business investments in plants and equipment. Businesses also would be able to take tax deductions this year on operating losses from as long as five years ago.
Under the deal, nearly everyone earning a paycheck would receive at least $300 from the Internal Revenue Service. Most workers would receive rebates of $600 each, or $1,200 per couple. Families with children would receive an additional payment of $300 per child. Workers who earned at least $3,000 last year -- but not enough to pay income taxes -- would be eligible for $300.
Rebates would be limited, however, to single taxpayers who earned up to $75,000 or couples with incomes of as much as $150,000.
Pelosi dropped some key demands to keep the tilt of the package toward the middle class and to include the working poor. In addition to the unemployment and food stamp benefit extensions, she set aside proposed funding increases for low-income heating assistance and aid to state and local governments in the form of either Medicaid assistance or infrastructure funding.
Those concessions prompted some protest from House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), who huddled with Pelosi deep into the night hashing over the details. Senior Democratic aides said they need more committee chairmen and rank-and-file members to sign off on the plan before they can unveil what they are calling a tentative agreement.
House Democrats assured members the package still must go through the Senate, where Democrats could add additional provisions. With unemployment still at a relatively low 5 percent, the demand for unemployment insurance extensions has not reached a politically fevered pitch. But it still may, they said.
"The Senate will want to speak as well. We want to ensure that Congress does its utmost for the American economy and for the American people," Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said this morning. He announced that his committee would draft its own stimulus bill next week.
To address the underlying economic issue of the housing slump, administration officials agreed to expand the Federal Housing Administration's ability to insure higher-priced mortgages and to help homeowners threatened by foreclosure renegotiate their loans without sharp increases in their payments.
The package would temporarily increase the size of jumbo mortgages that can be bought by government-sponsored Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, from $417,000 to as much as $700,000 in high-cost housing markets.
So I have a few questions:
I should be receiving $600 as a result of this. Does that count as income, and is it taxed?
If this $600 counts as income, which should put me into the next tax bracket, will that be the case?
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Remembering from 2001 when they did this, it is not taxed and doesnt count as income. I was hoping for the proposed $800/$1600....but I will take $1200 for my wife and myself...
Where is it coming from? Where do all taxes come from...You, me and everyone else...
I am interested to know more about the "help" the government is going to give to negotiate the foreclosure process with mortgage companies...Cause what is in place now, doesnt do shit...
"Son, someday you will make a girl very happy, for a short period of time....Then she'll leave you and be with new men who are ten times better than you could ever hope to be. These men are called musicians."
I am interested to know more about the "help" the government is going to give to negotiate the foreclosure process with mortgage companies...Cause what is in place now, doesnt do shit...
this one really disgusts me..............they should not be helping these folks out.....they knew they were getting in over thier heads.
They dont bail out investors who lose their shirts in the stock market, they should leave this alone and let the market shake it loose. To many people these days cry foul when they fail to read the contracts they sign. Ignorance is no excuse, I say let them foreclose.
As for the checks they want to send out, I think this is just so they can hand off a larger problem to the Democrats when they take office next year.
Workers who earned at least $3,000 last year -- but not enough to pay income taxes -- would be eligible for $300.
I want to know how the hell that works?!?! People that didn't pay any taxes get money back?!?! Personally, I think, if anything, it should be a percentage of the taxes you PAID.
this one really disgusts me..............they should not be helping these folks out.....they knew they were getting in over thier heads.
They dont bail out investors who lose their shirts in the stock market, they should leave this alone and let the market shake it loose. To many people these days cry foul when they fail to read the contracts they sign. Ignorance is no excuse, I say let them foreclose.
Yes, but Democrats are amending the bill. Dems have the majority, so the Republicans have to go along.
The repubs are introducing bailout proposals to save a disastrous economy under their watch. Plain and simple. Of course the dems are going to go along and wear the hero badge - when its all said and done its just "feel good" politics for both parties.
Wow, a whole $300 fucking dollars!!! Holy shit, what on earth am I going to spend all that on? Let's see, I'll probably just put an extra $200 on my credit card and keep $100 of it for food for a week. Yea, that's really going to stimulate the economy...
Jesus fucking christ... how about reduce the tax on gasoline so I'm not out $50 every time I need to fill up. Fucking government has completely lost touch... it consists of 95% millionaires, who think that a whole $300 is really going to help us average folks.
The repubs are introducing bailout proposals to save a disastrous economy under their watch. Plain and simple. Of course the dems are going to go along and wear the hero badge - when its all said and done its just "feel good" politics for both parties.
Yup, I don't want to turn this into a Dem vs. Repub argument, because they are all politicians and therefore have only one thing in mind: getting reelected.
bite me dough boy...last time I checked you dont exactly have the market on common sense cornered.....but since you know everything that probably does not matter................
Ecnomic stimulus package
