Economic Stimulus--from Planet Clueless?

By Si Dunn

Many Americans have been hurting economically for a long time, approximately the same length of time that George W. Bush and his disciples of greed have been in national power.

If you're middle class or lower, "financial struggle" is your middle name. And no amount of corporate or upper-class tax cuts will make much difference to your quandry, particularly in the near future.

Now that the careless Bushits have helped the nation's economy slam into a recessionary brick wall, leaders on both sides of the political aisle suddenly have been screaming: "Rebates now! Economic stimulus, now! Dole out the cash, now!"

So that's what's happening: Republicans and Democrats recently were trying to decide exactly how much allowance to give us, so we can blow it all in one weekend on pizza, Chinese lead toys, lottery tickets--and campaign contributions.

The Bush Administration initially wanted to hand out generous tax rebate checks of $800-$1,600, but only to people who already earn enough money to have to pay taxes. According to the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, the Bush "largess" would have ignored 30 million working households where wage earners don't make enough to pay income taxes. And another 19 million households apparently would only get partial rebates.

In other words, the Bushy Boys wanted the money to flow straight into the hands of those who already have--at least theoretically--reasonably good to fabulously nice incomes. As for our poor robotniks who grub all year cleaning toilets, mopping floors and changing bed pans, yet never rise high enough on the income ladder to show up on IRS radar...well, let them figure out how to save more of their meager money and create their own economic stimulus packages. In other words, they should just buck up and quit being poor.

The bulletins now emerging from Washington say an agreement has been reached. The money--borrowed from somewhere to be paid back later (somehow) by others--soon will start flowing from the Treasury, even (at the Democrats' dogged insistence) to the "stimulus-unworthy" poor.

Once again, supposedly, we will now save ourselves and also save the world simply by spending a few hundred bucks apiece on electric bills, car payments, SUV fillups, karate lessons or nuclear-powered cell phones with built-in HDTVs.

There has to be a better way to run this economic railroad. And maybe we should start by running the Republicans out of Washington on a rail next year. But first, be patriotic: Spend your rebate! Buy some American cheese. Buy some American peanuts. Buy an American hamburger! Then leave the change as a tip!

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