TAX REBATE $: Who's travelling??
 

My tax rebate check is going towards airline tickets! Thank you very much Mr. President. <BR>What about you fellow travel lovers?? <BR>Who's spending their money on travel?

I sent mine back with a letter asking that it go to deficit reduction.

Ours is going to a local Children's Hospital - government not all that concerned with sick kids. No thanks Mr. President.

When our $600 arrived, we of course laughed a bit, shook our heads, and took W.'s unwanted gift and promptly invested it in an IRA. One of these days, we'll all have to communicate about how the downturn is affecting us ... this subject's already been done to some degree, but an update may be warranted as ("if" ... I think not) trends become gloomier. I'd really enjoy knowing what you see ahead ... does anyone, for example, believe we'll see a 3.2% growth rate next year? And what will this do to airline and hotel prices (travel related stuff)? Thanks, and ciao.

I'll be saving mine to use this winter when W and his oil barron buddies rape us again on gas prices. <BR>I hope this thread is not for some republican poll. Kind of like the NRA polling its members to find out what "citizens" think of gun control. Most americans do not frequent this forum and very very few americans will be spending theirs on leisure travel. Count on that.

I will be donating mine to the Democratic party.

Spending it on travel, you bet! Nice to get it!

.we are using it towards our next vacation...it;s going to be a rough winter with oil and gas prices and I might as well enjoy it.. Living in the Northeast we will get zonked.... Can hardly wait until Dummy is out of the White House.. wonder how his vacation is and when is he having a news conference??

Evidently W. worried about the prospect of breaking Nixon's vacation record, so we shall have him back in DC, temporarily, at the end of the month ... but just long enough to pick up fresh underwear before helicoptering to Camp David. I wouldn't count him out in 2004 quite yet ... lets see if the public cares enough to make a change. Press conference? Probably right after Condit, and as enlightening. Ciao

I sure love all of you bitter, guilty, rich liberals. Our party thrives on your type. <BR> <BR>All that money for travel, time to actually sit around all day and post messages about it AND guilt. <BR> <BR>We luuuuvvvvvv you. <BR> <BR>"Me in 2004"

TO: XXX post on Children's Hosptial donation. <BR>I commend you on your decision! <BR> <BR>Isn't it nice that YOU actually had a CHOICE over where YOU got to send YOUR money? <BR>I'm Pro-Choice when it comes to you deciding on how to spend your hard earned money. <BR> <BR>Unless, of course, you feel totally inadeqaute to continue to make such choices and we can let Mr Gephardt decide for you? <BR> <BR>Would you have made a $300 doantion if there had not been a refund? <BR> <BR>If the refund was $1600 would you have donated all of it to charity?

Got news for you all. That was not a rebate you got. It was an ADVANCE on next year's refund. If you aren't due a refund next year you could end up OWING more, and if you are due a refund, it could be up to $600 SMALLER. Don't believe me? The truth is at www.irs.gov

bj, <BR> <BR>I am not one to address nonsence or antagonitisc post...but respectfully I would like to comment on what you said: <BR> <BR>"I'll be saving mine to use this winter when W and his oil barron buddies rape us again on gas prices" <BR> <BR>Opinions are great, and arguements are made strong by the vocabulary that is used... but please do not use the word rape for any scenerio that is not describing a sexual rape... if we use the word too often I fear it will be desenticized(sp?) <BR> <BR>Thank you <BR> <BR> <BR>

Citizens got $600. Oil companies promptly got millions in tax breaks. So who's the sucker? <BR> <BR>Could the rebates have been part of a plot to send some bennies to the oil buddies while no one was looking, all of us busy jangling the newly discovered chump change in their pockets? <BR> <BR>Nah. :) <BR> <BR>Seriously, as for me, I didn't get a rebate. I filed for an extension, and I just sent in my tax forms last week. That's a weird rebate indeed where people who pay their taxes on April 15 but file for a perfectly legal extension get zippo. I would think I ought to get a rebate check any day now, but the experts say no.

To "ThanksForHearingMe" - <BR> <BR>BJ's use of the term "rape" was not incorrect. In fact, sexual rape is not the only, or even the primary defintion of that term. Nor do I think that "sensitizing" people to esoteric language issues will reduce sexual rape. <BR> <BR>Back to travel issues!

First the dummy talked down the economy which made things worse, and then with the surplus vanishing he gave us a tax rebate! I plan to save my money and put it into the stock market when the Dow Jones hits 6,000.

I'll be giving mine to Planned Parenthood. They will have their hands full battling the right wingers who stole the election.

Bought a new flat-screen TV with our refund. Next spring the old one will be donated to church for their rummage sale. <BR>

I really had no intention of turning this into a "political thread". Will definitely think twice before posting anything I intend to be "light hearted" again! <BR>(Sorry I asked!!) Trish

I plan to send my money to help PRIVATE research on stem cells. This is very important research that could break through many barriers in the medical world. However, W is not putting any federal funding into research which would involve embryos not already destroyed? come on! This researh is going to go on anyway and people are going to continue to donate thier embyos to research. ( I mean their going to be destroyed anyway!) Why not go full force with this new breakthrough research that would make medical advanements for everyone? Just like conservatives, never looking to far into the future, we've got money now so give it away to people to buy flat screen TVS, when the money could go to research to help millions in the future. Why don't we just bury our heads in the sand a little more the same way we do with environmental issues. A GREAT president takes risks, some good some bad. A poor president keeps the status quo, or in this case, goes on vacation!

Sorry Hello, but rape is not about sex. Never is..never has been. It is about power and control. <BR>Trish, I KNOW you know better. This thread was bound to stir things up and I almost feel quilty for topping this again but I had to set the power thing straight. <BR> Now back to travel and (yawn) work. <BR>

Youth hockey season is starting in 2 weeks. My returned money will go towards a small payment on my kids hockey fees.

To Mad Scientist. <BR>What a typical liberal. Expects the government to do everything and wants to tell people how they can spend THEIR money. <BR> <BR>If there is a profit to be made, which there obviously will be, the private sector will be on it. <BR> <BR>Unless you believe that there is a carbeurator that gets 150 miles per gallon on a mixture of water and gas that has been bought out by Big Oil and that black helicopters always circle your house? <BR> <BR>BTW, if you think a President can go on a "vacation", you have truly fallen for the party line. Just because he's in Texas, away from the 80sq miles of dreamland surrounded by reality, doesn't mean he's "away from the phone." <BR> <BR>We'd love to bury our heads in the sand if we knew you weren't too close behind to pick our pockets. <BR> <BR>Do you ever travel? If so, what a waste of money when people are starving and have no shoes. You should be ashamed of yourself and give all of your extra money to the government to give to them.

United Way agencies across the country are noting a sharp reduction in giving this year. Combined with falling levels of domestic federal aid (measured in constant dollars - we have to generate that surplus somehow, don't we?) the upshot is that our travel or big screen splurges are falling disproportionately on the backs of the old or the sick or the poor. So when you switch on the new box or get off the plane, take a few minutes to watch an educational program about economic multipliers and "leakage" or else tour one of the less fortunate neighborhoods at your destination, then party on. <BR> <BR>(You are traveling in the US and not overseas, right? Your new TV was built in this country, right? Or else you're personally committed to an outflow of funds and a weakening dollar, right? Or you slept through high school social studies, right?)

I'm going to enjoy the new TV. No guilt. The check was probably a one-time thing. I'd guess that I give far more to charities than those who preach about the sick/old/poor. <BR>

I did my bit and plowed it straight back into the economy. <BR> <BR>The whole thing's stupid, and a senseless waste of money--I'm not talking about the advance refund, but about the time the IRS spent sending out the checks and determing how much everyone gets, as well as the time and money involved in mailing those ridiculous notices and the checks. Can't we all agree that the IRS could have spent that time and money on things like customer service training, or basic data entry training, so they wouldn't tell me that I didn't pay my taxes, even though they cashed the damn check??

"Rape us again on gas prices"? On the Europe forum I recently wrote a commentary of the rise in prices between my first trip to Europe in 1964 and now. Many travel expenses (esp. hotels) have risen 10-20 percent. But in the 1960s we were paying abour $.30 per gallon of gas, and now we're paying about $1.50, though it varies widely all over the country. I paid only $1.27 in southern Wyoming last week, though it was $1.75 in the Tetons. Thus, you can see that gas prices have gone up five times. Those of you that are old enough to have worked for 35-40 years, hasn't your salary gone up 10 or 15 times in 35 years? <BR> <BR>

I believe some people pay more for a gallon of WATER than for a gallon of gas. We have cheap gas!

I meant to say that hotel prices had gone up 10 to 20 TIMES. We paid $3.40 for a large room near the Sorbonne (left bank) in Paris in 1964. I understand that today a decent budget hotel in Paris can be found for $60. or so.

I'm putting my rebate back into the economy (it'll probably help pay for a new kitchen floor). I believe that Bush did not include this rebate in his tax bill but that the Democrats added it in. Gebhardt wanted it to be larger (or so I read in the newspaper recently).

This "dummy" didn't "talk down the economy." Do you mean while I was compaigning? The DOW hit its high almost a year before I was inaugurated, in the spring of 2000. Some of you are pretty ignorant about economics. There are cyclical ups and downs, and what any president does doesn't have a lot to do with it. A lot of the credit for the economic prosperity during Clinton's presidency was a result of Reagan's tax cut.

Bush may not have asked for the "rebate," but he seems happy to take credit for it, in much the same way that.Clinton decided to take credit for welfare reform that the Republican congress passed early in Clinton's presidency.

Oh those politicians! I read a commentary in the newspaper a day or two ago explaining how Daschle is now arguing the exact opposite on a point about the budget and social security surpluses as he did a couple of years ago in the Clinton Administration. What a hypocrite!

The Bush Bribe will not work here. My money will go to a non-profit that supports the environment.

We'll be spending our $600 "refund" towards replacing our 20 year old refrigerator which helped double our electric bill since Edison added 2 more punishing "over baseline" levels.

To: Texan <BR>Please note, you said YOUR money! <BR> <BR>Sure is nice when you can CHOOSE where to send YOUR money, right? <BR> <BR>Gives you, the citizen, the right to choose where you want to spend it. It's called power and the less the government has of it, the better our lives will be. <BR> <BR>Unless, of course, you actually like being a prole?

Since when is the government not the same as the people, Patriot? Oh, wait, it's when a bunch of geezers in robes select the president instead of the voters. Why don't you spend "your" money on some nice anti-ballistic missile bits and pieces and let me spend "my" money to support campaign finance reform?

Dear Patriot and what about all the millions they spent to send a letter to tell us we were getting money back. I said "my" money because it has my name on it. Now we will have to borrow money to pay interest, etc., when they could have done that in the first place and erased our debt. But, that would make too much sense and we would have more money in our pockets because the debt would be paid. Duh!