Well, the House passes the gigantic $819Billion Stimulus Bill...

[maat55]

I agree Maat. Money is going to be spent though. I'm merely addressing how it's being spent. If the Gov't is hell bent on passing a stimulus package(and they are) it should at least make some sense. In a perfect world they wouldn't and shouldn't be involved but "big brother " is involved and won't go away so I'd like to at least see wise choices made.

I totally agree that any money spent by the gov. should be spent well, but we both know that is impossible. I'm more discouraged that " We The People" are less concerned with keeping it out of their hands, more than what they will do with it.

[CoreAssets]

Over-spending

We got into this by over-spending. I don't see how more over-spending is going to get us out.

[calksmoit]

The stimulus money being used to buy overseas banks and now owning 1/3 of other banks here.... just doesn't seem to do it for me. At least the Republican mindset gave some stimulus back to us - WHO FEEL THE ECONOMIC CRUNCH! I promise you the President doesn't have to think about how much he owes in bills to determine how much he has left for groceries... ridiculous in my opinion.

[tripods68]

"Couples making up to $160,000 a year, for instance, would be entitled to $2,500 in new tax credits to pay for college in 2009 and 2010."

Clarify this for me: I plan to take two courses this summer at local community college towards my real estate brokers license.

My question: Am I entitled for whole tax credit or just partial on what I paid like tuition, books, gas/mileage? I'm just wondering.

[blankcheck]

We got into this by over-spending. I don't see how more over-spending is going to get us out.

Well, the current problem is, money is not moving from one position to another.

People not spending--->businesses not generating cash flow--->investors not getting any benefit--->Banks not getting enough money--->people not getting any loans--->people not spending...

(I didn't mention employment; that's part of the framework of how a business is able to generate income, and of course is the #1 way most individuals get money. This stuff is WAAAAY more complicated than I'm making it sound. I'm pretty ignorant.)

The idea of the stimulus is to artificially inject some money into one or more of these points, and get the cycle going. Of course each individual would want it to go to their personal arm, but oh well, the gov't chose the banks and large businesses for the most part. Boo Hoo.

Having said that, based on what we've all been reading for a few months now, banks are still as stringent as ever, so the cycle is not kickstarted just yet.

Based on a WSJ survey of economists, there's a split. Some say the stimulus won't help regardless. Others say that the stimulus isn't even close to being enough (as in, SHORT BY A FEW HUNDRED BILLION! )

The truth is, NOBODY HAS A GREAT ANSWER. We're all just scared to admit it. If there were massive tax cuts, and only a small people had the mentality to invest in a down market (yup, I'm saying that the mentality of the folks on this forum is the minority; I hope I'm wrong), the situation could still be very similar. But outrage feels better than negative acceptance, I guess.