Senate Panel Proposes $300 Bonus For Seniors

[Purveyor]

Source: Associated Press

(01-23) 15:08 PST WASHINGTON, (AP) --

Senior citizens receiving Social Security would get a bonus payment of $300 under the Senate version of President Barack Obama's economic recovery plan.

--CLIP
The bonus for seniors is but one chapter in the Senate proposal. There's also a temporary two-year $500 tax cut for most workers and $1,000 for couples, a $2,500 tax credit to help pay for college, tax cuts for businesses and to promote renewable energy, and $87 billion worth of help to states struggling with their 2009-2010 budgets for the Medicaid health care program for the poor and disabled.

The $300 bonus for seniors and disabled people receiving Supplemental Security Income payments would cost $17 billion, and is perhaps the biggest difference between the House and Senate economic recovery plans. Veterans who get disability and pension payments would also get the $300 under the proposal. The emerging House and Senate plans are generally similar otherwise.

Neither the House nor Senate measure includes help for middle- to upper-income taxpayers caught in the alternative minimum tax, which aimed to prevent tax-avoidance by the extremely wealthy but now threatens about 24 million additional tax filers.

--CLIP
The Social Security bonus is a one-time payment. Other provisions in the stimulus measure generally extend for two years.

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Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/01/23/national/w083221S11.DTL

[customerserviceguy]

1. Save it for next year

Right now, those on Social Security are getting a decent COLA on the January checks, but that 5.8 percent was based on high fuel prices. I'm willing to bet that by the time they go to look at inflation for the 2009 COLA, it will be very, very low.

[madamesilverspurs]

2. Or not.

Keep in mind that for many people the COLA increase brings about a commensurate downward adjustment in benefits from state and/or county agencies. In other words, it's often a wash.

[nancyr]

3. S.S. increases: so does Medicare, RX and supplemental insurance.

It pretty much evens out.

[Baby Snooks]

4. It just isn't enough...

Congress simply has no concept of what life is like for most Americans - offering a $500 tax cut and now a $300 "bonus" to people on Social Security is nothing short of an obscenity when juxtaposed against the $700+ billion Congress gave to a few on Wall Street which for the most part the few seem to have put in their own pockets instead of utilizing to actually help the economy by making loans available although a growing number of Americans of course can no longer quality for a loan.

A growing number of Americans no longer have any real income for the $500 tax cut to have any real meaning. At least George W Bush put a check in the mail. Not that it mattered much to most Americans.

Congress needs to accept reality. A growing number of Americans are unemployed and no longer receiving unemployment benefits or are underemployed and simply cannot afford to carry it all anymore. Most have no way to pay for medical emergencies. Most can barely cover the mortgage or rent and keep the utilities on and keep food on the table.

So far what Congress is proposing, on both sides of the aisle, is simply more of the same. The rich get richer. The poor get poorer.