IT'S OUR MONEY, GIVE IT BACK:

Democrats Seek a Tax Rebate to Aid Growth: Responding to the Bush tax cut plan, Senate Democrats called for a $300-a-person rebate check and $40 billion for states and cities. (David Firestone, 1/25/03, NY Times)

Senate Democrats took on the administration's tax cut plan in earnest today with the release of a sharply different economic stimulus proposal, calling for a $300-a-person rebate check and $40 billion in aid to states and cities.

The one-year plan, announced in Cleveland by Senator Tom Daschle, the minority leader, would spend $141 billion to stimulate the economy, in contrast to the 10-year $674 billion plan proposed by President Bush. It would drop the administration's proposal to eliminate the dividend tax, an idea with diminishing support on Capitol Hill, and concentrate its tax relief at the lower-to-middle end of the economic spectrum, with few benefits for the wealthy.

Today's plan is likely to become the Democrats' most reliable political tool once the jockeying over tax cuts begins on Tuesday with Mr. Bush's State of the Union address, even though the party lacks the votes to pass it. Although some Democrats have slightly different ideas on how to stimulate the economy, the party appears to be more unified against Mr. Bush's economic ideas than it was in 2001, and its leadership has begun to take heart in the president's slippage in opinion polls, particularly on economic issues.

The rebate is an excellent idea: the GOP should add it to their plan and make it permanent. Aid to the cities and states is a terrible idea. They, like the federal government, spent like drunken sailors in the 90s when they had too much money, so now they need to cut spending not get more tax money. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 25, 2003 9:13 AM