Obama Questioner: What About Sending All That Stimulus Money Directly to People?

I’ve been wondering why there hasn’t been much talk about sending big bucks directly into the mailboxes of American taxpayers.  The amounts of money being bandied about in Washington are astounding, yet nothing that speaks directly to our pocketbooks.

After all, if you sent every person who has paid taxes for the last five or ten years, say, 50 to a 100 grand, wouldn’t that stimulate the economy?

Let me answer my own question.  Hell yeah — but do you want your tax dollars spent on my paying off my mortgage or my goofy neighbor buying that Hummer he’s always wanted?

Public funds should be for the public good.  That’s why stimulus spending is often couched in terms of infrastructure – bridges, roads and the like.  No one I know doesn’t believe in the public good of safe roads or well-built schools.   Other important ways to spend stimulus funds include shoring up our Medicaid investments and providing more dollars for unemployment compensation.  Again, there is a public good to be derived from the social safety net.

So, it turns out some that stimulus money will immediately find its way into some folks’ pocketbooks – the folks who temporarily need it to stay in their homes and put food on the table.

Here’s how President Obama answered a very interesting question:

QUESTION: Thank you. I also want to just be very thrilled to be in the presence of you, because we’ve been looking for a change. We are truly tired of the economic stuff we have been getting that has got us into the position that we’re in. That theory has been a trickle down; we need to trickle up.

(APPLAUSE)

So I would hope, in — in — in your philosophy of trying to kick-start the economy, that the money is directed to the people who are — have homes that are foreclosed, the people that have lost jobs.

To try to give it to a bank and give a low interest rate and the person whose home is being foreclosed on don’t have a job don’t help anybody. It’s — it’s a sale that nobody can take advantage of because you ain’t got no money.

(APPLAUSE)

QUESTION: So I would hope and I pray that you would support the people who got you into the office, we the people — not the fat cats, we the people — to whereas that the money is directly into the hands of the people who are hurting, to whereas we don’t have to worry about going to the state, going to the federal government, standing in line somewhere. Send that check to our mailbox.

(APPLAUSE)

Amen. Amen.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: Let me — let me — let me respond.

QUESTION: So we can take it to the bank and pay that mortgage. Thank you.

OBAMA: Let me — let me — let me — can everybody hear me? Testing. Hello, hello, hello? Can you hear me now? Hold on a second. Testing, testing. How’s that? All right.

The — well, let me — let me respond in a couple of ways. Number one, when it comes to tax cuts, you are exactly right, that, instead of providing tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, what I’ve been pushing in this plan is to make sure that the tax cuts goes to working families.

That is not only good for those families; it’s actually good for the economy. Because when you give a tax break to working families who are struggling, they will spend it on buying a new coat for the kids or making sure that, you know, that they get that car repaired that they use to get to work.

When you give it to the wealthier families, they just put it away somewhere and so it doesn’t circulate into the economy. So tax cuts targeted to working families are the most effective means of stimulus that we can provide to the economy.

Now, you’re making another point, though, that has to do with a separate part of what we’re going to need to get this economy moving again, and that has to do with the financial system and the banking system. And I just want to be clear that the Recovery and Reinvestment Act that is before Congress right now is just one leg in the stool of recovery. The other thing that we’ve got to get done is we’ve got to get the banks stable and lending again.

Part of what’s happened in terms of the R.V. industry, for example — I was talking to Congressman Donnelly about this — is basically people who want to buy an R.V. can’t get financing right now, even if they’ve got good credit.

So what we’re going to be trying to do is to set up a whole new mechanism for helping people get consumer credit. We’re going to help small businesses and medium-sized businesses get credit. And instead of just pumping that money directly into Wall Street, we’re going to make sure that a lot of that money is going directly to consumers and the money that does go in to Wall Street is going to come with some strings attached.

You cannot — you cannot — you cannot expect taxpayers to bail out banks that have made bad decisions when they are then using that money to give themselves huge bonuses.

(APPLAUSE)

So — so one of the things that we’ve said is, look, we understand that the banking system is fragile right now. And even though those folks made bad decisions, it could bring down the entire economy and affects towns like Elkhart, so we’re going to do something to strengthen the banking system.

But, you know, you are not going to be able to give out these big bonuses until you pay taxpayers back. You can’t get corporate jets. You can’t go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers’ dime. There’s got to be some accountability and some responsibility, and that’s something that I intend to impose as president of the United States.