One of the Sensible Centrist "compromises" in the Senate version of the stimulus bill is the preservation of the current income threshold necessary to qualify for the child tax credit. According to the Center for Community Change, the House bill would eliminate the income threshold entirely, while the Senate bill would lower it only four hundred dollars to $8,100 from $8,500. The benefit increases in value the more you make, someone making $100,000 a year gets more out of the credit than someone making $8,500.
Why is this good stimulus? Low-income people are more likely to spend the money now, thus stimulating the economy. Low-income people are also the ones most likely to be feeling the stresses of layoffs, foreclosures, and a lack of access to reputable credit institutions, which is to say that they can really use the money. So it doesn't really make sense to keep the income threshold at all, except that shafting people with less money is a very Sensible, Centrist approach to making policy.
-- A. Serwer
