Did you know that Google is also a calculator? I didn’t, but tried anyway because where else could I possibly divide 700,000,000,000 (money Congress just agreed to send to Wall Street) by 138,000,000 (estimated number of taxpayers in 2007)??? My calculator doesn’t go up into billions–I don’t usually work on Federal Finances at home.
Anyway, my portion is just over $5k, if you assess every taxpayer equally (which doesn’t actually happen, some people pay more, some people pay less). Which means that hubby, also a taxpayer, is also on the hook for $5k. Hmm….$10k. How will I spend it? Finance an adoption? Save it for the downpayment on the house we want (but aren’t buying until we have a downpayment! novel!)? Replace our 10 year old car? Save it for a rainy day? Nah….I’ll give it to the government. I’m sure they’ll spend it wisely. Maybe they’ll use it to buy up a bank that holds bad loans it can’t get rid of. Maybe it will go to some poor millionaire exec about to lose his job.
Seriously, I am not all that politically motivated. I’m really not. But I’m really peeved about this whole thing.
I would borrow my $5K and pay interest on it the rest of my life if you could guarantee me that the execs and ceos of these financial firms would retire homeless and live off dog food. They created this “crisis” out of nothing but greed.