Obama's Stimulus: Tax Break or Chump Change?
By Paul Bedard, Washington Whispers
Americans are not a happy bunch, according to our new Whispers poll from Synovate. The latest downer: Those polled say the income-tax break that amounts to about $13 a week is so small that they won't even notice it. And practically nobody said it was enough to even prompt a McDonald's splurge. Asked what they will do with the much-heralded $13 when it arrives beginning in April, a whopping 63 percent said that it is so small that they won't even notice it. Twenty-five percent said that they would simply apply it to bills. And a combined 12 percent said they'd either go to the movies or take the kids to McDonald's. Men were especially depressed, with 66 percent telling our pollster that the break was chump change. And women sounded more responsible, with 28 percent pledging to use the money to pay down credit card bills. Here are the grim statistics:
The Whispers Poll
Under the president’s stimulus plan, most taxpayers will get a tax break roughly equal to a $13-a-week raise. How will you spend it
| It's so small I won't even notice it | 63% |
|---|---|
| Pay down some credit card bills | 25% |
| Go to the movies | 9% |
| Take the kids to McDonald's | 3% |
Source: The Synovate eNation Internet poll was conducted February 20-24 among 1,000 nationally representative households by global market research firm Synovate.
Tags: Barack Obama | economic stimulus
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Reader Comments
Obama's Stimulus: Tax Break or Chump Change?
Chump Change. I'm sure we will end up paying triple in income taxes in what we are receiving now.
Not long after he did this, Discover turned around and raised my finance charge / interest rate up almost 6% due to 'the economic hardtime', so now I owe even more on the balance. Because of MY economic hard times, I had to use my card for some of the necessities of life, which I would rather not have used it at all.
In the past three years, I have paid well over half my balance in interest alone, yet my bill has not gone down by more than 1500.00 - that's only 500 a year!
The only 'winners' in USA are the car manufacturers, the banks and credit card companies.
Didn't get a tax break
My income is pension, social security, and IRA
withdraw. I didn't earn my pension so no tax break
there. My IRA distribution triggers social security
benefits tax so for evey $1 I use adds $1.85 to my
taxable income for a marginal tax rate of 28%. My
gross income is $50K, that group that isn't going to pay any taxes. Don't know who got the gold mine, however I know who gets the shaft.
march tax deduction decrease
My CPA advised the Obama tax break as a farce, due to the annual IRS tax rate not decreasing along with the payroll tax reduction. This being true will cause most of us to owe more taxes at end of 2009. I try to align my deductions to be on the plus side allowing me to get back a small amount each year. I attempted to research this on the IRS website to no avail as the last update being in January 2009. Could someone in the know research this matter and expose the farce if true?
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