DISQUS

dad · 1 year ago

a drop of rain in a sea of anguish

Ksue · 1 year ago

We used ours to pay for PART of our quarterly taxes for 2008. Irony, much?

Bush_Bites · 1 year ago

Don't worry, John.

80 percent of the country live in metropolitan areas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_th...

Gas prices will continue to increase population density.

The Rednecks are losing a war of attrition.

Bush_Bites · 1 year ago

Besides, everytime I take a subway or local bus ride, I consider it revenge on the hillbillies paying through the nose to get to work in their SUVs.

Ben Dover · 1 year ago

Mine went directly into the savings account and that's where it will stay.

Busboy · 1 year ago

Don't believe everything you read, BB. Oklahoma City is a "metropolitan area" which is almost as big as the State of New Jersey and only contains something over a million people. Hardly metropolitan except by some bureaucratic standard.

Bush_Bites · 1 year ago

Maybe, but more than a third of the population lives in the top 25 metropolitan areas:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_metr...

Busboy · 1 year ago

I think that's a much more meaningful statistic. OKC is ranked 44th and there are miles and miles of farmland within the metro area.

Busboy · 1 year ago

Here's one way to look at it. I buy about 1200 gallons of gas a year. That $1200 stimulus check subsidized my gasoline by $1 a gallon.

GrMtGirl · 1 year ago

First and foremost ... how do you give away money you don't have? I could definitely win some "bownie" points giving multiple lavish gifts to many I love if I knew how it was done. Secondly, we all knew it was a brainless, feel good, GOP gimmic to temporarily calm the fears of a major recession. Didn't work, won't work but watch these brillant GOP leader do it again! Afterall they are stepping down and will leave the massive deficeit for someone else to be concerned with.

Slim Cognito · 1 year ago

We used ours to pay off a credit card. My son got $300 and did spend his on clothes, which he desperately needed. He was literally wearing rags. But I don't know anybody who spent theirs on something fun.

Bush_Bites · 1 year ago

I don't think many people spent their's.

Retail is the next segment of the economy to hit the skids.

clytemnestra · 1 year ago

"We used ours to pay off a credit card."

. . . . which is exactly what I argued would happen to those who thought this would indeed stimulate the economy - I said that the majority of people would pay off debt - money already spent - not spend on much new.

Slim Cognito · 1 year ago

Yep, and our credit card bill wasn't from anything "fun" either. It was to fix up the old Geo Tracker to keep it running. It was still cheaper than buying another car.

Rob Mule · 1 year ago

After all the missing flatbeds of cash, the abandoned construction projects and astronomical graft its time to, once again, nickel and dime the ordinary taxpayer.
It similar to pirate payouts...big piles to the Captn and officers and only single dubloons to regular seamen.
Arrrgh, matey, thar she rebates!!!

lynchie · 1 year ago

Rebate checks are just buying votes. Use the money instead to provide health care for those who don't have it. Use it to provide home heating oil for people without the income to pay the staggering costs this winter. Seems Congress can't find $5 Billion for that but they can piss away $1 TRILLION for the war. Use the money to fix roads and bridges. Use the money to care for our wounded men and women in an illegal occupation. Our government must have tons of money sitting around because they continue to spend it on things that most Americans don't want and not on the things that will help. Continuing to grow the national debt to pay Americans $1,000 at the expense of our future is in a word moronic. How about asking the rich to give back their tax decrease or consider going back to the tax structure Regan dismantled. To give away billions of dollars in rebates shows a total lack of any logic.

Bush_Bites · 1 year ago

Nationalize oil and we'll all have enough money.

kladinvt · 1 year ago

OT - White House fabricated Iraq-Al Qaeda connection and more:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?st...

Ben Dover · 1 year ago

BushCo's War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity are certainly starting to add up.

clytemnestra · 1 year ago

We haven't even gotten our "stimulus" check yet ... but aint that rich, the Bush administration oposes a second stimulus package because it would drive the deficit higher -- they are only concerned with the high deficit when it comes to helping hte little people (a.k.a. the majority of the country)

Indigo · 1 year ago

I had it deposited direclty into my checking account and put it in the bill-paying heap. Maybe it helped a little.

jr · 1 year ago

"having an apollo project for renewable energy that would have created millions of jobs is socialism. Only a war will help us"-Bush junta in 2002

dula · 1 year ago

Well the $600 certainly helped me...paid the bulk of my summer vacation which I wouldn't have taken otherwise. Who cares if we can't pay for it. We can't pay for the wars and we can't afford the bail outs for the financial sector either. I'd rather we spend money we don't have on tax paying citizens rather than tax evading corporations.

bumpkis · 1 year ago

Let the bidding war for votes begin...Obama camp mentioning 1000 dollars per family....you just know the GOP will up the anty. I think we'll see it settle in around 1500 per taxpayer this time.....

ChrisM70 · 1 year ago

I think the stimulus checks were a stupid idea too, but i wouldn't blame small towns for the problem. Furthermore, it sounds like there is a little bit of East/West coast vs. the Midwest anger going on.

If you lived in the midwest which is mostly ignored by politicians and the news media you might not think you have it so bad in the "Big City".

mangoes · 1 year ago

There was a serious hole in that idea. My mom, who can't find a job, has no insurance, is selling her food stamps for gas money, got zilch. She also gets zero unemployment since she has been a freelance graphic artist for most of her life. At least I qualified so that I could use that incentive check to pay for her car insurance so that she can continue her fruitless job search for another 3 months.

Spunky_Jitters · 1 year ago

I directly paid off a credit card bill, exactly what I wasn't supposed to do. I can't believe, after 8 years of republican rape to our economy, and my payoff was a lousy $600.00. I know they all made a lot more than that......

bosdav · 1 year ago

Straight into my savings account. On principle.

Hannah · 1 year ago

Yep, mine went right back to the government as an estimated tax payment (since I'm self employed). Very ironic.

LasloPratt · 1 year ago

But you see, by handing out free money we make sure that money is not available for things like health care and education. It really is better, in the eyes of our "conservative" friends, for this money to vanish in a puff of smoke (or on palettes in truckloads in the middle of the night) than for this money to be used to actually improve the lives of the nation's citizens. (Who are whiners, as we already know.) They would burn it on the White House lawn before they would allow it to be used for anything resembling the common good. But someone might notice if they did that.

So... free money!

astroworf · 1 year ago

What's with the anger directed at us rural folk? Try it sometime, John, you might like it. I did my stint in DC during the Nixon and Ford administrations and am still trying to wash off the stench.
BTW, I bought a blue-ray player for my computer with my check. The rest is in the bank until it gets frittered away on the higher price of groceries.