Wonder why they don't just cancel 2007 taxes and refund everyone everything they've paid in

What the hell, in the state we're in it wouldn't make much difference. If they wanted to they could continue to screw the lower earners by not refunding Social Security payments too, they could say its somehow different.

The fairly comfortably off like me will not get anything from this stimulus thingy (and I'm not complaining - the whole point about being comfortable financially is that you already have discretionary spending power, so it's not all that much use from a fiscal point of view giving me $600 more of it).

I'm not a huge fan of this compromise, but it's not as bad as a lot of DUers say. I doubt it will do much, but the target is appropriate at least. Essentially anyone over $3K in income gets something, unless you get into the mid six figures bracket.

Only people who lose out are those squeaking by on that income in super high COL areas like Manahattan or SF, or those who had such incomes last year but have lost them or declined sharply this year.

and we're solidly middle class here ($50K a year)

and this is of course subject to change, this one really IS a rebate - not an advance on your return for next year.

they still keep $2800

At a moderately good income like that you should not be complaining about paying less than 3K towards the government's functions.

i have no problem with paying taxes

:shrug:

we're trillions of dollars in debt and the register keeps cha-chinging with each passing day.