Follow the Stimulus, Part 2: Stoves in Davenport, Iowa

Keep up the good work Jake. I am glad someone is following the money trail and telling us what is really happening.

He didn’t pick a “dinky” little part. He picked a part that was written about s-p-e-c-i-f-i-c-a-l-l-y. It was solid investigative journalism. Way to go! Please keep it up.

“Of course many of these projects would have happened anyway, the point is that they are happening more quickly.”
Wrong. The stimulus package was not sold on those terms, it was sold as a “shock to our economic system” that would provide IMMEDIATE stimulus – not funding for initiative already in place, and not happening months or years later but immediately.
But nice try on defending the stutterer in chief and his differently abled sidekick with the chia hair. What flavor is the kool aid today?

2Brixshy:”The stimulus package was not sold on those terms, it was sold as a “shock to our economic system” that would provide IMMEDIATE stimulus – not funding for initiative already in place, and not happening months or years later but immediately. ”
Immediately, not months later? Citation please, and not a twisted paraphrase from Rush or Hannity.
And could you right wingers please stick to one insult – is he an empty suit who only got elected because he could give a good speech, or a stuttering buffoon with speaking skills more like Moses than the Messiah.

ChicagoBob:”How about a flat 20% across the board for everyone. ENOUGH aobut you cant tax the poor. THEY are taxing US to death. ”
Total tax burden in the US is among the lowest of any first world nation, and a pittance compared to what it was when Reagan was elected (with a 70% top tax bracket!). You look incredibly uninformed when you rant about ‘taxing us to death’; you may as well rant about us having a pathetically small military.
As for a flat tax, the only vaguely first world nation I know of that has tried anything of the sort was Iceland, and they’re not exactly a symbol of economic success at the moment.

J House:”Now where did the rest of the $787 billion go?”
Go to recovery.gov and check it out for yourself. And remember a lot of that $787 billion was tax cuts – it wasn’t spent, rather it was never collected. Including about $70 billion in the AMT patch – almost 10% of the bill – directed solidly at people earning more than $70k a year.

Recovery.org???? Haha…ha…hahaha
You want people to rely on the information at Recovery.org after reading about the, ahem, inacurracies in this booklet? heh

J House:”Are you telling me the ‘middle’ aren’t paying enough now and that their ‘burden’ is too low?”
No, I am citing that observations of the tax rate in other first world nations strongly suggests that we are getting this level of governmental services on the cheap. And we are – that’s why we have a deficit.
Taxes need to go up across the board, the ‘millionaire’ tax bracket Reagan eliminated needs to return (at a reasonable level – not 70%!!!), and the capital gains tax needs to return the sane level that Reagan implemented at the end of his tax rework.
We live in the most powerful, prosperous free country mankind has ever seen. I’m sorry to see that you are unable to appreciate there is a cost associated with that. I suppose you consider kids a horrible burden too.

I suppose you consider kids a horrible burden too.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Nah, they’re just punishment if we, ya know, make a mistake.
Obama:
“Look, I got two daughters — 9 years old and 6 years old,” he said. “I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.

Well, jw, I live in Singapore part time…plenty ‘first world’ and low tax rate (and no captial gains tax).
Seems to be humming along quite fine.
You seem to be unable to understand this country spends trillions of dollars a yr on alot of things…in fact, a budget that dwarfs most other ’1st world nations’ (and rapidly growing)…and it is increasingly a significant portion of US GDP, which is unsustainable even if you raise the rate to 90% on all income earners above $75k.Do the math.
I did not argue the govt shouldn’t spend money or that we shouldn’t pay taxes…it simply spends too much,taxes too much and we get lousy results.
If you think the rich should pay more…fine. Oprah, George Soros and Rush L will not be materially affected, I can assure you.But, that ain’t where the money is.
Have the President go out to the podium and tell middle class americans they aren’t paying enough, that their ‘burden’ is too low by comparison…that, to live in a ‘prosperous’ country, they have to pay more…see where that gets him in 2012.
Sadly, hi knoews where the money is but he is too cowardly to admit it…it will sink him.
The $ 10 trillion debt will be left to a future President and the rest of us.
Or, perhaps you can explain how it will be dealt with?

You know what: That means the city is going to spend that money on something ELSE! So, it’s stimulus! I really don’t understand you at all here.

“…strongly suggests that we are getting this level of governmental services on the cheap”
And what level is that?
We spent trillions of dollars to defend America yet 19 people destroyed the lower half of a city and part of the Pentagon.
We’ve spent a half trillion dollars on homeland defense since then and we hear ‘we’re not any safer’.
(yet anyone with knowledge can bring a bomb on board an aircraft today, like Ramzi Y. did in 1996)
We’ve spent $3 trillion on 2 wars and we hear the same thing, and both aren’t even over yet.
We’ve spent hundreds of billions since the 60′s on a ‘war on poverty’, a ‘war on drugs’, etc…I’m pretty sure we haven’t won those either.
I’d say the ‘level of govt services’ isn’t worth what we pay now.
This govt, under both Republican and Democrat admins, continued to spend more than it took in and where are we now?
The President and his party decide to spend even more money they don’t have
on services they can barely deliver.

“Well, jw, I live in Singapore part time…plenty ‘first world’ and low tax rate (and no captial gains tax).”
Heh, lets see that kind of vehicle tax fly in the US.
“Seems to be humming along quite fine.”
And under whose military umbrella do they huddle?
“You seem to be unable to understand this country spends trillions of dollars a yr on alot of things…in fact, a budget that dwarfs most other ’1st world nations’ (and rapidly growing)…”
We’re bigger than any other first world nation on earth – of course our budget is bigger! Are you honestly suggesting that on a per captita basis US government spending is higher than in Europe?
“and it is increasingly a significant portion of US GDP, which is unsustainable even if you raise the rate to 90% on all income earners above $75k.Do the math.”
What a stupid comment. In 2006 (the most recent year data is available), the reported income of all filers was $7.4 trillion dollars. A 90% tax would be about $6.6 trillion. The predicted 2009 budget is $3.1 trillion. When making outlandish claims based on your personal fantasy land, it really hurts your credibility when they are so easily debunked as nonsense.
“it simply spends too much,taxes too much and we get lousy results.”
And that’s where we disagree. I see the best nation on earth paid for by among the lowest taxes in the world – a tax burden that has been halved over my lifetime. I don’t know where you live, but I’m pretty darn proud of how effective our government is.
“If you think the rich should pay more…fine. Oprah, George Soros and Rush L will not be materially affected, I can assure you.But, that ain’t where the money is.”
I’m not sure what you mean by that – the statistics are that the top 5% of income earners in America take home over 34% of the income (2.5 trillion out of 7.4 trillion total, 2006 numbers). You are clearly operating under fundamentally flawed assumptions – YES, that is where the money is. The top 10% account for about half.
“Sadly, hi knoews where the money is but he is too cowardly to admit it…it will sink him.”
You don’t seem to know it – the information is publicly available online. The majority of “the money” is in the top 10% of wage earners, the rich who have been well served by Republican policy. This is basic fact – not some fantasy rant.
“The $ 10 trillion debt will be left to a future President and the rest of us.
Or, perhaps you can explain how it will be dealt with?”
A combination of inflation, the return of the “millionaire” tax bracket, economic and population growth, and hopefully a long term Democratic government who doesn’t pursue the same ‘starve the beast’ insanity as the Republican party.

JW, tax ‘cuts’ aside, that leaves $500 billion in spending, plus the new spending in this yr’s budget…trillions.CBO numbers.
Yes, I absolutley understand ‘investments’ (i.e., spending) can kickstart the economy.
The question is, how much and on what?
Explain to posters here why running up the US debt to $9.3 trillion is good for all of us.
Explain how those ‘rich people’ are going to pay it all down.
Explain to them that when you triple the money supply, you will eventually have to raise interest rates when the economy comes back to pull that money back out of circulation before inflation hits hard.
Explain to them what the interest rate was in 1979, and, the inflation rate, and, how the U.S. got into and out of it?
Explain to them what an oil shock can do to energy costs in the U.S, as well as the overall ecomomy? Another one is coming…

jw, my work for the past 13 yrs takes me there, as well as other parts of Asia and Europe.
I haven’t gone native…my home is the U.S. Always will be.
My point was, we tend to look to Europe for solutions, in terms of ‘tax and spend’.Why?
I don’t like the authoritarian govt model in Singapore, but it works for them.
And, they seem to inherently understand that a ‘pro-business,pro-growth’ climate requires low tax rates.
Do you know why so many rich people live in Fla? Do you know why New Jersey’s economy is suffering, compared to 20 yrs ago?

===The FACT is the government is taking less money from her in taxs, yet you don’t call that a tax credit===
I did call it a tax credit. You, and Obama, call it a tax cut. It’s good your sister is saving the money. She will either owe it back to the government in April 2010 or see a reduction in her refund. Her tax rate is unchanged from 2008. No matter how you and Obama spin it.

Axey:” She will either owe it back to the government in April 2010 or see a reduction in her refund.”
? Your understanding is just flat out wrong. The only way her refund is reduced is that she’s getting her $800 credit over the year rather than as a lump at the end of the year. Her end of year refund will be equivalent to last year’s.
Read up on this – it is over $100 billion of the stimulus cost;

J House:”My point was, we tend to look to Europe for solutions, in terms of ‘tax and spend’.Why? ”
They are equivalent quality countries, so it is logical to look and see what works for them and what doesn’t work. For example, we have decided their obsession with mandatory vacation (at least 4 weeks paid, usually 6-8, every year) and extreme job security really hurts business. So we aren’t going that direction. We see their health care system is far cheaper per person and has similar results to ours, so we may go that direction.
It makes an awful lot of sense to consider the mistakes and successes of others when plotting your own course.

===Sure thing there – she is paying $800 less in taxes this year than last year. ===
And next year, she will have $800 less than this year. See how it works with a credit and not a cut?

Keep up the good work, Tap.
Don’t let the O-bots in here or elsewhere distract you from the smoke and mirrors this Administration has been throwing up since it started two and a half years ago.
Keep digging, and you’ll probably find that the closer you get to the truth about this Administration, the more rapid and hysterical the attacks on you will become from the O-bots.
It’s good at least one journalist still has the courage to speak inconvenient truths to those in power.

jw,
You left out the 95% (which is really half of that that actually pay) that earn the other 66%…so, no, you’re wrong.The money IS in the middle…you are forgetting payroll taxes,etc.
And, if you did raise the rate to 90%, it still wouldn’t pay off the debt.(you are forgetting the rate in which spending comtinues to increase over time…do you think it will just stop and we’ll start ‘saving’? What do you think the budget will be in 2015?)
You also fail to realize what ‘rich people’ do when their taxes rates go up…they move, move their money (or get better accountants)
Why does Bono live in Holland and not Britain?
Why is Mick Jagger a resident of Monaco?
Wht does Greg Norman live in Fla, and not Australia?
Why did hedge fund mgrs pay capital gains taxes on their income, and not income taxes? (that the President seeks to close the loophole)
I won’t quibble that you think US govt services are great and a bargain.
(You must have lived in Venezuela before?)

Jake, how does it feel to be the only journalistic “check and balance” on the Obama administration? Must be pretty lonely.
Just think, if there ever is a really big story, you are gaurenteed a Pulitzer because you’ll be the only one coverig it!

A whopping $13,000, perhaps those stoves would have not been made in America if stimulus money was not used.
Part 2 ? Well my guess is that you have found two examples to point out. That is great, but out of how many? Can we have some perspective here?

TARP, the huge vinyl cover over Wall Street Fat Cats and giant corporations, is creating a hot, stinking, sweltering, festering mess underneath. Transparency? More debt will fix our problems. Please.

M:”They have national health care that goes along with cancer death rates so high it would be unimaginable in this country…
You never hear the media discuss a huge industry in europe and canada called “health care tourism”.
LOOK IT UP PLEASE
It is when people that can afford to pay travel elsewhere so they can purchase quality and timely health care.
If you can’t afford to do that you are out of luck .”
And yet the FACTS are they have higher life expectancy and spend about half as much on health care as in the US.
As for “health care tourism,” I a Canadian friend who was at UC Berkeley went back to Canada for treatment for a brain tumor. And my four Aunts in the UK have never once gone on a health care tour.
If you want to get a new knee so you can keep up your tennis playing, national healthcare can suck. If you want to get antibiotics so you don’t end up in the emergency room ICU next month, it just flat out works better.

J House:”You left out the 95% (which is really half of that that actually pay) that earn the other 66%…so, no, you’re wrong.The money IS in the middle…you are forgetting payroll taxes,etc.”
Wait – so “really half of that actually pay” yet you accuse ME of forgetting payroll taxes, which every single tax payer pays? Once again, you can’t even keep for contradicting yourself in adjacent sentences.

Axey:”Obama is going to have some angry people when they discover the difference between a cut and a credit.”
Like everyone was angry when Bush mailed out checks directly for his tax credits?

OxyCon:”I’d also like to know if those appliances that the taxpayers are buying are being given away free to the residents of those housing projects.”
Um, it’s not unusual that landlords “give” their rent-paying tenants “free” appliances. Kinda part of not being a slum lord.

jhw,
you’re wrong. From recovery.gov:
Getting Needed Cash to Working Families. In an effort to get much-needed cash to hard working Americans as quickly as possible, in late February the President announced the IRS would issue a new set of withholding tables structured to get the tax credit to America’s workers in cash over the course of the year. By reducing required withholding amounts, workers’ take home pay is increased immediately

===Like everyone was angry when Bush mailed out checks directly for his tax credits?
Posted by: jhw539 | May 29, 2009 11:09:40 AM===
Bush didn’t have a tax credit. It was a stimulus check. You can continue to believe what you want about credit/cut, is/is, but just remember you were made aware of the difference when you and your sister either owe next year or your refund is reduced by the amount you got “credit” for this year. Unless congress passes a reduction in the tax rate and makes it retroactive for the tax year 2009.

jhw539 wrote: And yet the FACTS are they have higher life expectancy and spend about half as much on health care as in the US.
===
Actually, about the same life expectancy, at about a third of the cost. But it’s possible that Americans spend more on healthcare by choice. That knee replacement for tennis, is a good example. What’s wrong with wanting to maintain an active lifestyle for longer? And in fact, wouldn’t the person who stopped playing tennis be less healthy?
Life expectancy isn’t the only measure of whether a health system works. And spending more money isn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes when you spend more, you get higher performance or quality.

===What, specifically, was the $116 billion dollar cost of this program?
Posted by: jhw539 | May 29, 2009 11:25:55 AM===
You are just getting around to asking that? It is $116 billion dollars they won’t have in their coffers this year because they reduced the amount of withholding. They did not reduce your tax burden. Sorry, anyway you slice it, the income taxes you owe for 2009 will be exactly what they were in 2008.

“You are just getting around to asking that? It is $116 billion dollars they won’t have in their coffers this year because they reduced the amount of withholding. They did not reduce your tax burden. Sorry, anyway you slice it, the income taxes you owe for 2009 will be exactly what they were in 2008. ”
Oh, so the stimulus package actually cost $116 billion LESS by your logic – all that money will be back next year, right? But the stimulus cost has always been calculated over multiple years, which makes your ‘logic’ nonsense.
My income taxes will be the same as last year, but the first $800 of them I don’t have to pay. But that’s not a tax cut. The tax credit is the same as a $800 check mailed out in 52 weekly pieces. And that $116 billion is gone for good – it’s taxes not collected and will not be made up in April.

==Posted by: jhw539 | May 29, 2009 11:41:12 AM==
“My income taxes will be the same as last year, but the first $800 of them I don’t have to pay.”
That, my friend, is not true. You will owe them and you better see an accountant quickly if you really don’t understand this. What part of a reduction in withholding are you not understanding? Your tax obligation remains the same. You will either owe money if enough has not been withheld this year to cover that obligation, or your refund will be reduced by the amount you have already received. You still owe the $800 unless a real tax cut is implemented that is retroactive to the tax year 2009.
You spoke of an employer earlier. See if you can ask someone in payroll to explain it to you. You can reduce the amount withheld by changing your W-4. If you don’t have enough withheld to cover your tax obligation, you pay it when you file your tax return. Same if you had too much withheld. But your tax obligation doesn’t change because you didn’t have enough withheld to cover it.

I agree with several posts saying Jake is actually doing his job. This is the only reason I go to this web site “number”. Jake is a true journalist and I think he will be one of the few recognized in the long run. Thanks for the truth it’s hard to find anywhere but FOXnews> com.

Axey:”What part of a reduction in withholding are you not understanding? Your tax obligation remains the same.”
What part of $800 tax credit do you not understand?

Axey:”The $800 is for joint filers. If you have 2 jobs and both jobs are reducing the amount withheld to equal the $800, you are in a world of hurt. ”
Joint filers or head of household. And if you have 2 jobs and are on default withholding, you already have issues.
As a side note, the tax credit is phased out for those earning over $70k – this is the vaugely rational, “its not fair,” argument I’ve hear from conservatives. The right wing display of ignorance here, denying the existence of the tax credit payments entirely, is baffling. I’m not sure if it’s a Big Lie campaign or sincere ignorance.

=== I’m not sure if it’s a Big Lie campaign or sincere ignorance.
Posted by: jhw539 | May 29, 2009 12:01:07 PM===
I’m really through with this issue unless Jake does an actual blog about it. But I assure you, I am right on this one. There was no tax rate reduction.

Axey:”There was no tax rate reduction. ”
No there wasn’t. But there was a tax credit given, so the reduced weekly withholding does not have to be paid back come April as you absurdly claimed.

What I say is more important than what I do. Right?

Haven’t spent 7% of the first round……but lets hurry before someone asks to see the second, okay?
God save us from this IDIOT!!

I’m grateful that I can live in a country where I work 50 hours a week to pay for someone else’s new stove, and then come home each night to my own broken stove that I can’t afford to replace.

If you want some stimulus money, you should move to Congressman John Murthas district of Pennsylvania. He just loves to give our money to anyone who is a voter of his with no accountability at all, just a few bucks kicked back to his re election bid.

Pardon me . . . I low balled the Rumsfeld ‘lost’ money figure . ..
(CBS) On Sept. 10, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted, “according to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions.”
$2.3 trillion in unaccounted for funds under the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld watch.
And President Obama is catching heat over 42 home stoves.
Interesting.

Every wave has an under current. We are still at the peak of the Obama wave. He can get in front of a telepromter and sell the faithful pretty much anything.
Turns out there are some real holes in the facts and they are starting to get traction. Obama’s spin machine is having a hard time twisting things in their favor; even the faithful are having a hard time swallowing what they are feeding them. It all worked when they had Bush to bash as the alternative but that is fading – now it is Obama, his agenda and the results.
When they have to reach that far tells me that they know at some point someone is going to say “the emperor has no clothes.”

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