That the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008 will successfully mitigate economic slowdowns over next year.

The resolution at hand is whether the economic stimulus package will successfully mitigate the economic downturn over the next year. While the stimulus package will undoubtedly have some effect, it will be minor and unsuccessful. I have contended that the tax refunds are not big enough. In the last 3 months, there was a net loss of 60,000 jobs in the United States. In the last year home foreclosures went up 60% to an all time high. Millions of people have lost their houses and millions more have built up more debt in their house than it is worth, putting them tens of thousands of dollars into debt even if they sold their house, which is next to impossible in this market. If someone has lost their job, lost their house, or is tens of thousands of dollars in debt then giving them a few hundred or even $1,200 dollars or more is not going to successfully mitigate that loss. Even if all the tax rebates go to increase revenue and thereby increasing jobs to re-employ those who lost their jobs, it will take much longer than a year for that money to trickle from consumers up to the top of the economic ladder in the form of increased profits, and then back down in the form of increased investments and jobs. My opponent argues that "Not all the rebates are going to people in that kind of debt." That only proves the ineffectiveness of the tax rebates. It is the people who have lost their jobs or houses that have been most affected by this recession and it is them who need the most help. If the rebates are going to a bunch of people who have not lost their jobs or houses or have not decreased their spending than that is essentially wasted money. The tax rebate fails to help those that have been most hurt by the recession and thus fails to successfully mitigate the economic downturn. Moreover, those that have not worked in the past year or would pay less in taxes that they would earn in the rebate do not get the rebate. That means that if someone has been un- or underemployed for the last year because of the recession, they get no money back. The hardest hit by the recession receive absolutely no direct benefit at all from the tax rebates. Basically, the harder hit you are by the recession, the less the rebate does to help you. My opponent claims that the new tax rebates will work because the tax rebates worked in 2001. There are several problems with this argument. First, the cause of the recessions in 2001 and now are different, meaning the solutions are different. The recession that happened around 2001 was caused by the tech bubble bursting and so did not result in the large increase in personal debt among the poor and working class that this recession has. This recession has been caused in large part by the large increase in sub-prime mortgages and subsequent foreclosures. The different causes and effects of this recession mean what may have worked in 2001 will not work not. Second, the tax rebates did not work. Bush was forced to pass tax cuts to help the economy in 2003 to help the economy and again in 2008 to alleviate a recession people have been prediction since 2006. The tax rebates failed to help the economy. Finally, you claim to have evidence that the 2001 tax rebates worked, but reading back up the debate, the only evidence I could find supporting this claim was a quote saying "the 2001 rebates provided a "substantial" stimulus to the economy." I am not sure what a substantial stimulus to the economy means or what proof there is that it did, other than that baseless assertion. It is incorrect to treat the recession in 2001 and the recession now as the same problem that can be solved by the same means. My opponent argues that all the checks will be out in May because that is what the IRS said. Anyone who thinks the IRS is a prompt, efficient, well-run organization capable of processing over a hundred million tax returns within a month and mailing them all out as soon as it says it can is living in a dream world. The IRS just does not work that fast. My evidence is my personal experience. I don't earn enough every year to actually pay taxes, so I get a check back every year. Last year when I submitted my taxes in March, well ahead of most people, it still took till June for me to get my check. The IRS just does not work fast enough to get those checks out to help the economy within a year from now. But more than that, even of all the checks go out and are spent in May, it will be a long time before the benefits from increased consumer spending are seen. It will take a prolonged period of consistent increase in consumer spending to begin to effect businesses practices and get them to hire more people or increase investment. None of this is going to be able to happen within a year. The question at hand is whether or not the economic stimulus package will successfully mitigate the economic downturn in the next year. The stimulus package will be unsuccessful because a couple hundred dollars is not enough to offset tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt or lost income caused by the recession. As a result, no matter what percentage of our GDP the total package is, the tax rebates will not be big enough to work. Whatever minor effect they will have will not be seen within the next year. It will be the summer before the majority of households begin to see their checks and year before businesses can feel the result of any increase in consumer spending, and then another few months for that increase in consumer spending to translate into increased investment and expansion which can translate into new jobs. The stimulus package will not work to mitigate the economic downturn within the next year because these sorts of things just don't work that fast, no matter how good they are. Bigbass3000's arguments overlook important distinctions. His argument that it is big enough ignores the important difference between big enough as being a function of the total bill as a percentage of the US's GDP and big enough as being big enough to have a significant impact in the hands of individual tax payers. His argument that it worked in 2001 so it will work now ignores the important differences between then and now. He has made no attempt to show why these two recessions are similar and simply claims that "it worked in the past... so it will work now." The different causes and effects of the two recessions means that what worked in 2001 cannot work now. These important, if subtle, distinctions that bigbass3000 overlooks are the most important reasons that the economic stimulus package will not successfully mitigate the economic downturn in the next year.