Am I the only one who’s not jumping happily up and down clapping my hands with glee at the “stipends” or tax rebates reported as part of the plan Bush and the House agreed upon just a little while ago?
I’m withholding my gleeful claps for two reasons:
1. It’s hailed as simple and practical — yet I listened to U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. step up to a microphone to explain the deal in a nutshell, and by the time he had fumbled through it a couple of times, contradicting himself and some of what Pelosi and Boehner had just said, and I was more confused than before he started.
2. Senators were not really joyous in their comments about the plan and if you’ll read the story I linked to you’ll read that Sen. Reid said that “senators would ‘work to improve the House package’ through the addition of unemployment benefits and other items.”
When the package finally gets approved, who really knows what the tax rebate or business stimuli will look like? If recent history is any indication, Democrats and Republicans, Representatives and Senators, will all work together to get it passed much later than necessary with much lower numbers than necessary. I’d almost be willing to bet on that.
Ah, well, what do I know? I’m just a guy who reads the papers.
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