Is the $400/child rebate a politcal flop?

[RobertSeattle]

The (up to) $400/child checks are arriving in people's mailbox'es now but I haven't heard much hoopla about it in the news - is this a dead story this time around (I recall lots of hoopla about it back in 2001)?

Have people caught on that the $400/child was just a trick to divert peoples attention away from the FACT that most of the tax cut went to the highest earners? (Who won't get a check, but their tax cut will vastly exceed the $400/child amount when they do their taxes in 2004)

[DagmarK]

1. Among other things......this little payoff to the people = votes for us!

I started to write in to our local news station to tell them to CORRECT their story, which went:

(synopsis): your $400 check will be arriving soon. Make sure you keep all the paperwork that comes with it because you will need it for your next tax returns.

The votes in the box for us will be when folks take note of two things:

1. Hey, I didn't get a check! Or, hey, this isn't $400! AND

2. When they fill out their taxes DURING the dem primaries and realize that whatever they DID get was just a pre-payment of what I was going to get back on April 15th??? It wasn't really a just the govt giving me money back?

I decided NOT to write to the news station......let the PEOPLE decide on their own what a smokescreen scam that tax "cut" was.........and let them vote after that!

[AngryWhiteDemocrat]

4. I disagree, Dagmark

You should alert them ALL to it as much as possible.

They might think you're just another lefty nutcase, but then when it happens to them, it'll be a rude awakening.

But a rude awakening is still an awakening.

[blondeatlast]

27. I hope others realize the money goes back.

Hubby and I do and were going to save it; unfortunately, things happen and we gotta use it. But it is a smokescreen.

Ya gotta admire the timing though; just before school . . .

[bowens43]

2. By Nov 2004 the checks will be completely forgotten

but the huge and growing deficit will be right in our faces and bush will rightfully receive the blame.

[corarose]

3. My Friend received a check for $28.75

She has one kid and her check was for $28.75 which will go on a pair of shoes for her daughter from payless shoes.

She makes $24,000.00 per year as a pre-school teacher and most of the kids parents at the pre-school received around $400.00 bucks but her check was for $28.75 and she showed it to me thinking that it was a mistake.

[Generic Other]

7. I think it was a mistake because no one under $40,000

was supposed to get one. They don't pay taxes, you know. (sarcasm inserted). Trouble is half the children in America live in these households, and they are the ones who most need the money.

[corarose]

8. Oops

Her husband makes around $26,00.00 per year working part time as a substitute Teacher. He didn't get allot of hours last year and he works in a public school.


I know their combined income was $40,900.00 for last year alone and that was not a ton of money. They can't afford a house and they pay $1,100.00 a month on rent.

[1monster]

9. Hey, where does he sub? I'm a sub and I make about $8 to 9,000

per year working as many days as they call me, which is usually fifteen to twenty days a month during the school year.

Obviously, I need to move to a better paying school district!

[corarose]

10. Chicago

He subs in Chicago.

[Throckmorton]

16. Same here, Mrs Throckmorton works as a sub,

One school district pays $80.00 per day (very industrial district with Nuke Plant paying 60% of the towns taxes) and the other she works in pays $65.00 per day (this is the district in which we live). Last year she worked a total of 150 days, and made about $12,000. This is Connecticut, where its expensive to begin with.

[corarose]

18. This year

He has made under $10,000.00 dollars and they are living day to day.

[RetroLounge]

5. We have 2 kids and received out check this week

for $800.00.

A portion of which will be donated to the Democratic Candidate.

The irony of Bush* paying for his own defeat is too much...

[blondeatlast]

28. I SOOOOO hope you are right!

Go RetroLounge!

[liberalhistorian]

6. I think once most people with kids who are NOT

getting the check realize just who the checks ARE going to (the ones with more money, who don't really need it), or they only get a small check, the shit's really going to hit the fan. I'm already hearing a lot of grumbling about it, and I'm not getting one, either, so I think this might have the opposite effect of what Shrub intended.

[Parche]

11. singles

What about the single people, who dont have any offspring (that they know about)
I pay taxes too, and the government always neglects the single people

[LuminousX]

12. Singles

We single people aren't well thought of. You only count for something in this country if you have children. And as George Carlin said, we spend too much damn time worrying about the children.

If the government really wants to spur spending, cut my FICA a bit. Or I know, allow me to skip one student loan payment a year (my credit union used to do that every december, allow its members to skip one loan payment and just allow the interest to be added to the principle.) I'd be able to buy a car if it weren't from that damnable student loan for a damnable college degree that has turned out to be worthless (has anyone ever sued a college for misrepresentation and fraud?)

Oh well, I hope these people getting their money do something good with it, like donating 10% to Dean hehehe.

[Generic Other]

20. A college degree simply means you have learned how to teach yourself

anything you need to know. Did you? Then the money was well-spent.

Finally paid my own student loans off! I OWN my future. :)

[LuminousX]

24. You and your logic

have ruined a perfect good moment of self-pity!

:grr:

[corarose]

15. We always get shafted on everything

Single people pay the highest taxes and we get shafted on the tax cuts and rebate checks.

It's not fair!

[blondeatlast]

29. Just remember, it ain't free money.

It has to be declared next year as income.

[qb]

13. If we ever get our check

it will help pay the mortgage for that month and be forgotten. What won't be forgotten is the realization that our retirement and our children's future have been bankrupted by this corrupt administration.

[MarianJack]

14. Small Print!

This rebate (REBATE, b-r-i-b-e, REBATE), goes only to parents of children born before 12/31/86. Our son's Godmother is a hard working single African American mother of a 19 year old college student and will get NOTHING!

I guess that this fair, because college students don't cost their parents a red cent, do they? We also know just how much the rethuglicans want more educated black men now, don't we?

Maybe cheyney will send her some money, after all, this is trickle down, isn't it?

[grasswire]

17. does anyone ....

...have a clue about how this distribution is being calculated??

There's NO information about that in the news stories. I'm sure they withheld that info, but it should show up somewhere.

All we know is that families under $27,000 do not qualify.

[MarianJack]

26. Information

I hope that that info is available, but I don't know. By the way, I made a boo boo in my first response. The rebate is for children born AFTER 12/31/86.

My son's Godmother is visiting us in Maine from Philadelphis this week, and she saw the letter we got announcing out payoff, oops, refund, and she was understandably upset.

If they wanted to help us parents, we'd be able to write off more than $800 of the $6000 we spent on daycare last year. But of course I forget, my wife isn't a real mother since she isn't the June Cleaver of the 21st century!

[MidwestMomma]

33. Here's how it works...really. I think I have it figured out!

The basis of the 'rebate' is that the govt is raising the child tax credit from $600 to $1000 for this year. (The child tax credit is a credit for eligible dependents up to age 17 living in the home.)But instead of making families with children under 17 wait until next year to claim the full $1000 credit on their tax return for 2003, they are giving them the $400 difference now. So next year, when 2003 taxes are filed, these same families will only be taking a $600 credit as they have already been 'paid' the increased $400 amount in advance.

To be eligible for the rebate, you must have been eligible for the child tax credit on your 2002 return. The reason why people with incomes under $26,000 are not receiving a check is because they do not claim the child tax credit. I believe this is because the child tax credit is reduced by any child care credit, earned income credit and some other credit I can't recall right now. So technically, they do not claim the child tax credit as the other credits they can claim are greater than the child tax credit amount.

I am not a tax expert but this is what I have figured out.

As to why no big whoppee over this tax rebate...I think because last time when everyone got one, times weren't so bad and a lot of people were able to go out and buy something BIG they'd been wanting. But this time, things are so bad, people are going to be using it for mundane things like bills and back to school stuff.

Plus, last time some people got screwed when they found out that they could have used the credit on their taxes at tax time and wished they hadn't squandered the money.

Or it could be that as a nation we are so damn depressed right now that nothing could make us happy.

(Just got done reading in LBN and I'm hella depressed.)

[LuLu550]

19. Sending my check to the dems

I'm letting Bush know his rebate check is going to help defeat him in 2004!
Everyone else, should, too.
ha ha
LuLu

[amish_enforcer]

21. How in the Hell......

can something like this go down and it seems NOONE can give a straight answer as to what/who/when/how much/why? Ponderous!

[rasputin1952]

30. Because No One Knows...

what was involved. Many in Congress admitted that they never read the bill. You get what you pay for I guess.

This is a scam, just like the last 'rebate'. Anything to make bush look competent and compassionate; it won't work.

[leftyandproud]

22. my mom liked hers..

and her best friend got one too...seems to pleasantly surprised...of course, it can't match the loss in the stock market..

[Redleg]

23. I don't have kids (yet) so it doesn't effect me.

EOM

[RamboLiberal]

25. Saw a report on one of the network news over weekend

About military families with kids who are not getting the checks and they are pissed.

They covered an African-American Sergeant's family of 3 - soon to be 4 and they're trying to get by on about $25,000 a year.

Of course AWOL is trying to cover his butt by claiming he's for the working poor getting a check.

On a side note, I'm single and I'm a bit miffed that singles as usual get nada. Course if I did get the check I'd donate the majority of it to a Dem candidate and to local charities like the food bank. That's what I've been doing with my piddling * tax cut since 2001.

[diplomats]

31. I was talking to my hair stylist today

and she's angry she and her husband aren't getting the rebate. They have a 12-year-old son and the husband spent part of last year unemployed so they definitely made less than $40,000.

[LWolf]

32. My 2 kids are grown. No refund will be coming.

While I understand the concept of helping people who are raising kids, even when I was getting a tax break for my kids I disagreed with it.

It seems discriminatory to me. And...in a world of 6+billion people, frankenfood supplies to attempt to feed them, and concrete and housing developments devouring all the open space in sight, we don't have to worry about how "fruitful" our species is. We don't need to pay people to multiply.