TPM Reader CP checks in on the checks …
You assume that economic stimulus — i.e., short-term personal spending — is the goal of the $300 billion tax cut Obama is reportedly planning. But I suspect Obama intends to use tax relief as a fast safety net for those in the middle class falling closer to the blades of the financial reaper. Unfortunately, haven’t heard anything yet about help for the poorest of the poor, folks like me who are disabled and don’t pay any taxes because we don’t have any income.
I wanted to be clear in the earlier post and clarify if I wasn’t sufficiently clear that these checks can be very important for families and individuals. And that’s a big deal in itself. But we need both — help for individuals and families and also macro-economic stimulus. And to the extent that these tax cuts accomplish one and not the other (which I concede is very debatable proposition) my concern is that we may be shortchanging the second because the whole pie appears to be on the low side of what we’d expected and the size of the tax cut slice is pretty big.
