A Stitch in Haste

The conundrum I (and Lewis Black) hinted at previously about the latest plan to pander to the middle class stimulate the economy via minuscule (i.e., purely symbolic) "tax rebates" is becoming surprisingly (and refreshingly) prominent:

As President Bush and Congressional Democrats begin negotiations on a package of measures to stimulate the economy, the big fight will be over whether to put extra money in the hands of tens of millions of low-income families who paid little or no income tax last year.

Nearly 40 percent of Americans owed no federal income tax last year, though even low-income workers paid taxes for Social Security and Medicare. While Mr. Bush has refused to disclose specifics of his $145 billion plan, administration officials and Republican lawmakers favor a proposal that would offer rebates of up to $800 for individuals and $1,600 for families — but only if they paid that much in taxes last year.
...
"You have to be a taxpayer in order to get a tax rebate," said Representative Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin[.]

Indeed. If the government remits money to people who pay taxes, that's a rebate. If the government remits money to people who don't pay taxes, that's welfare. Think any Democrat proposing the latter will have the intellectual honesty to admit as much?

Exhibit A:

On the presidential campaign trail, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and John Edwards, a former senator from North Carolina, attacked the Republican approach for excluding people who need help the most.

Clinton and (especially) Edwards, who are moral defectives but not stupid, know full well that the federal income tax is obscenely progressive and that tax rebates cannot reach the working poor whom they pretend to champion. But did, or will, either acknowledge that what they are proposing is middle-class welfare? Of course not.

Exhibit B:

Senator Barack Obama of Illinois has already proposed a $90 billion program of rebates and supplemental Social Security payments that his aides said would reach 95 percent of workers.

Obama has been particularly insolent in not only vowing not to reform Social Security, but also in being the first and most vocal in calling for scrap-the-cap, which would remove any last pretense that Social Security is "old-age insurance" or "compulsory retirement saving" and is in fact merely another naked welfare scheme. (Recall also that it would be the largest tax increase in American history.) Remind me again how Obama is a libertarian?

Incidentally, does anyone really need reminding that January 2009 would be a tad bit late to implement any Democratic economic stimulus plan? Just saying.

To review: While no stimulus program is wise (or, for that matter, a legitimate function of government), and while increasing an already bloated government deficit is not exactly textbook Keynesianism, and while the only moral position would of course be permanently lowering spending and permanently lowering taxes, we are, in the reality-based community, confronted with three options:

1. The neither preposterous nor cruel premise that those who actually pay taxes should be the ones who actually get rebates.



2. Middle-class welfare during an election year.



3. Additional raiding of the (fraudulent) Social Security "trust fund."

I will not apologize for insisting that Option 1 is the least worst alternative.