I think the plan ought to include paying off mortgages. This will
give the banks money to loan & money in the american people's pockets to be able to spend more therefore creating more jobs and definate economic stimulis all around.

NO, it will not it will be a bandaid covering a wound that is slowly festering, eventually we will be in the same boat again. Why not just eliminate all income taxes to families making less than 150,000 for a year? Now that might help people more..because there will be more income coming in to your house. If they can bail out the banks, they can do the same for the American people!

I agree that spending on infrastructure should be a priority. We have serious issues with our roads, bridges and the like - those have to be addressed and doing so creates jobs.

With respect to other spending, though, we need to scale back. When I talk to folks about our economy, what frightens me is how we have grown so used to giant expenditures that those numbers don't even mean anything. What used to shock us at hundreds of millions of dollars is now considered a pittance. We can't fix all of our problems by throwing dollars at them.

We can't keeping spending and then cry that we want tax cuts. Tax cuts = revenue. Revenue needs to be greater than spending. Didn't we all learn that with our allowances? ;)

I generally agree with you, Kelly. An immediate boost in take-home pay is more sensible than a rebate check, and there isn't all that much that tax tinkering can do to fix the economy.

I think the one area where we might disagree is on the need to cut spending as a top priority--at least in the short run.

A huge contributor to our current economic woes is that demand for goods and services has fallen off a cliff. That's mainly because people and businesses are neither willing nor able to buy like they used to. There are many reasons for this: collapsing home values and investment portfolios, the drying up of consumer credit, rising un- and under-employment, and general economic pessimism are among the most important. But this situation is quite serious, and will take some time to work out of.

Given this situation, a key goal of the current stimulus package has to be to help stabilize demand for goods and services. And researchers have convincingly established that if it is done with any kind of care, public spending will increase demand much more efficiently than will reducing taxes. And that makes sense when you think about it. Cutting taxes--particularly to businesses or to more affluent individuals--offers no guarantee that extra money will be spent at all, much less in fashion that stimulates the economy efficiently. On the other hand, "shovel ready" infrastructure projects (repairing ailing roads and bridges, for example) puts people to work right away, helping to reduce the collapse in demand. That's one reason why short term, spending should and will go up, not down.

The long run is another story, of course. I admit to being nervous about the state of the federal budget once we get through this powerful economic downturn. Once stability is restored, we'll need to enact sizable tax increases and spending cuts. But first things first. When your town is on fire, the first thing you do is dispatch the fire department. Once the fire is out, THEN you then worry about how to pay the fireman's overtime and repair the fire damage.

Realistically, a lot of these planned changes aren't going to happen - at least not any time soon. The economy has ensured that changes to the tax code will be made in baby steps.

So, no to raising taxes for anyone - those making over $250,000 included - at least for now. You're just not going to see that in the final plan.

The tax cuts for working individuals are in the version of the plan offered up by the House for discussion - but some members of Congress aren't happy with those cuts. I don't think they're enough to make a real impact in the economy. On the plus side, they're being presented as payroll credits which means that instead of silly rebate checks (a terrible idea), taxpayers will merely take home more in their paychecks (a better idea).

I don't think that we will see any additional tax cuts beyond that credit for working families in the first year. Again, there are simply so many issues with the economy that cutting revenue is not appealing to Congress right now.

Ditto for extra tax credits, etc. I just don't think that new credits will be added right now but existing credits might be expanded.

All of that tax code simplification talk? Won't happen - for years. That's my prediction. Sorry guys! :(

Realistically, I just don't think that fixing the economy through the tax code is the way to go. For all that we complain about taxation, the US doesn't pay that much as a percentage compared to other nations. And in the midst of a flailing economy (flailing just sounds better than failing), cutting those rates even more just doesn't work when you crunch the numbers. Cutting spending, not cutting taxes should be the priority. Beyond that, there are bigger economic factors - like jobs - that will drive the recovery.

What do you think?