If you have a child which cannot save and invest money giving them an extra $20 isn't going to make them start saving. They will spend it, and in a few months the money will be forgotten. Likewise the current stimulus package which includes up to 1500 per person in tax rebates, will be pissed away as a small blip on the retails sales radar and will have little overall economic impact. Now don't get me wrong, some of the proposed bits of the stimulus bill make sense. Raising the amount Fannie Mae can back on mortgages (of course this will only effect mortgages over 400k) will allow business to expand, and further tax incentives will give breaks on capital improvements and are designed to let business's expand cheaply.
The government check to individuals is nothing more than a bribe during an election year. God forbid they should lower taxes by 800 or 1500 dollars per person, no instead they want to send the money back to people, to give them that warm glow during an election cycle, whether or not the people have paid taxes in some forms of the bill.
It's an interesting contrast to an article run in the NY Times Business section several weeks ago about the Saudi Governments economic stimulus plans. The Saudi's are building 9 industrial cities with the surplus income from the high price of oil. That's not 9 welfare or arts cities, but 9 Newark New Jerseys to provide jobs and a future for the country. They realize that their good fortune can't last forever and are investing in purchasing technologies and rights (they recently purchased the Dupont and GE plastic divisions). They are not looking to give their citizens handouts, nor are they resting on their Oil cushioned laurels. They are aggressively pursuing becoming an economic superpower.
Can you imagine the crap which would get tacked onto a similar proposal in the US? Even sadder can you imagine a politician having the foresight to even propose it?
How about a tax incentive to companies for creating jobs domestically? Our politics have degraded to a bunch of corrupt Yahoo's leaping over each other to see who can give handouts the fastest. How long can our economy survive this mistreatment?
