The Republican plan for for the economy was to keep it afloat by government overspending and overborrowing until the Democrats took over in 2009. Then the whole collapsing mess would be foisted off on them, they would be forced into the position of cleaning up the "malaise" and then they would get the blame for it. The Republicans would wing along in economic high times with tax breaks; the Democrats would be forced into the position of being the belt tighteners. What happened? The merde hit the fan about a year earlier than the Republican game plan called for. So what is Bush's response? Another shot in the arm to prop the economy up for one more year till he's safely out of office. This is exactly what the economy doesn't need: more spending and borrowing. Bush's $150 million package would be money just added to the national debt, along with the trillions he's already added, in a frantic attempt to stave off the malaise and not have it identified with the Republican party.
Bush wants everybody to go out and spend the pittance he's promising every American - $600 for individuals; $1200 for a couple; $300 for each child. This is the Roman equivalent of the "bread" in "bread and circuses." But what do economic advisors who advise individuals, such as Ben Stein and Suze Orman, advocate? 
Paying down your credit card and/or other debt which is exactly what Americans should do. This, however, will not provide any stimulus to the economy. A good case could be made that exactly what this economy needs is a good recession much as a heroin addict needs to go through withdrawal and not have just one more fix. Bush is offering just one more fix, and the Democrats are cheerfully going along with it, letting Bush off the hook yet again. Instead, they should saddle him with the economic malaise. Let the recesssion or retrenchment, if you prefer, start now. The sooner Americans, collectively, get out of debt and start saving, the better off we'll all be. The problem is not that we aren't spending enough; the problem is we're not saving enough.
And so what if there's an economic slowdown. Much economic activity is simply the meaningless buying of worthless goods fueled by advertising, excessive materialism and conspicuous consumption. Diminishing those impulses would be to the spiritual enrichment of all Americans.
And the problem, at the national level, is that we're indebting ourselves to China and the Arabs who have issued us a national credit card and are facilitating our running it up to absurd proportions. They're our enablers, and we're their patsys. The irony is that as we are trying to control the world in the name of national security, we are underminig our national security by voluntarily making ourselves into a vassal state of China, primarily, becoming our lord and master. We are borrowing billions in order to spend billions on military adventurism that is only making the US less secure and is acccomplishing nothing in terms of making us safer. The Iraq war is sheer folly from a national security and an economic perspective. The Chinese are co-dependently enabling us to spend billions there fighting some rag tag group, while, at the same time, putting us in the position of being beholden to them and even making more likely a US-China war sometime in the future when they exercise their "right of the master" and make a move to take back Taiwan.
Individuals need to pay off their credit cards with the money Bush is giving away - not go out and spend it on Chinese goods. This will only stimulate the Chinese economy. The same goes for interest rate cuts. More unwarranted stimulus accelerating the falling dollar. Anything to keep the spending spree going until Bush gets out of office! The Democrats should fight for something more in line with Democratic principles like extended unemployment benefits, rebates to seniors on social security who have no earned income, full rebates to low wage earners and a moratorium on mortgage rate resets. Right now they've got Bush by the cajones; they should press their case. Bush has forced his crap down their throats for 7 years; turnabout is fair play. Bush wants a short lived shot of heroin; the Democrats should start now putting the American economy on a sound footing and marginalizing Bush and his foolhardy borrow and spend policies.
On another note, there are four propositions on the California ballot that would allow Indian casinos to add more slot machines with the sweetener that billions more, raked off the profits of these, would go to the financially strapped state. Is this the kind of society we really want? Money spent foolishly by seniors
blowing their social security checks in order to provide profits for Indian tribes who then graciously give part of the profits to the state so that it can continue to function? I say no. Let them come by the money legitimately like by, oh, horror of horrors, dare I say it, raising taxes instead of encouraging, aiding and abetting the foolhardy to piss their money away at Indian casinos. The state shouldn't bail itself out on the backs of the foolhardy; the Indians, it seems, have no such scruples. They just want to increase their profits. That's the American way. And they can argue that turnabout is fair play after Europeans stole their country and long-marched them onto reservations, at least those that didn't die from European introduced diseases. But, nevertheless, we shouldn't allow it to happen - increased facilitation of gambling that is. And the "direct democracy" of allowing propositions on the ballot instead of having these matters legislated by our elected representatives is severely flawed when the proponents of any given proposition can spend millions on TV ads promoting their cause.
