Refund Adjustment: Now pretty much a reality

President Bush and Congressional leaders reached a surprising bipartisan agreement today in regards to the economic stimulus package that has been floating around for the past couple weeks or so. While I do have a great deal of invested interest in this whole thing getting up in the air and moving (i.e. I need free money really bad), I still don't agree with the over all logic behind the whole thing. It's yet to completely pass, but the president is expected to sign it in sometime in the middle of February. No one expects anyone else to suddenly flip out and paper clip a proposal to deep fry any puppies or anything.

Both parties have butted heads together and seemed to have come up with a compromise that screws over the poor and the rich equally. While I can say I'd rather the democrats have gotten their way in full, it's a pretty fair compromise in the end of things, I think. I'm quite surprised at the speed at which they come to an agreement, though. There are a great deal of things that both parties get all hot and bothered about, but finances seem to irk pretty much everyone, from democratic representatives to republican over lords.

Which goes to show you that a lot of people pretty high up on the food chain are getting really antsy about the possibility of a recession setting in. Or the one we're in right now entrenching itself even further, should my belief be vindicated.

Republicans dropped their proposal to have this refund adjustment contain some language that'd allow businesses to reclaim taxes they've already paid. While this doesn't really affect the common Joe directly, I think in some indirect way it will. They've have been shouting for more benefits within this package that'd increase the capability of businesses to hire new, decently paid employees. While it doesn't concern me what so ever as I have two rather stable jobs, I do think this compromise will dent their plan, if only slightly. And when it comes to the economy, it doesn't matter how many people are out there buying stuff, if no one is there to sell it the whole thing goes caput.

Democrats surrendered their terms in regards to their desire to increase food stamps and unemployment. I would have really liked to see this squeak in under the wood work, not because I qualify for either, but because in a bad economy a significant portion of people do and it'd be nice to know they're doing a little bit better, especially considering their refund adjustment is going to be rather puny in comparison to someone pulling in six big figures a year.

So what does this mean in the end of things? The package has been balanced out to such a degree that businesses don't have a tremendous incentive to hire new, decently paid employees. Which leaves a fair quantity of people unemployed, who are getting boned on unemployment assistance and food stamps.

Okay, so maybe I'm exaggerating just a little bit. But you probably get the jist of what I'm trying to phrase. Everybody wins, so everybody loses.

The package will provide up to $600 to millions of wage earners, and up to $300 for each child dependent on a wage earner. Which isn't terribly shabby at all. If it gets into the works as quickly as it is expected we should be seeing our checks in the mail in time for 4th of July barbeques.

I'm going to funnel every single penny of mine straight at my credit card debt and not look back and think of all the pretty things I was supposed to spend it on. What do you plan to do with your adjustment? Will you put it into your savings account? Maybe put it toward a small CD? Or will you do something a bit more ambitious and use it to buy some shares of stock? Or will you be a good American and do what we all want to do the most, go shopping?