bj

Sorry Hello, but rape is not about sex. Never is..never has been. It is about power and control.
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.
Now back to travel and (yawn) work.

Bill I

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

HappyScientist

To Mad Scientist.
What a typical liberal. Expects the government to do everything and wants to tell people how they can spend THEIR money.

If there is a profit to be made, which there obviously will be, the private sector will be on it.

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?

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."

We'd love to bury our heads in the sand if we knew you weren't too close behind to pick our pockets.

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.

greenspam

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.

(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?)

No Bleeding Heart

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.

Jim

I did my bit and plowed it straight back into the economy.

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??

diane

"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?

diane

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

diane

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.

maggie

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).

George

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.

stella

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.

diane

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!

Texan

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

notgoinganywhere

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.

patriot

To: Texan
Please note, you said YOUR money!

Sure is nice when you can CHOOSE where to send YOUR money, right?

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.

Unless, of course, you actually like being a prole?

giveyourbucks

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?

Texan

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!