Well there's a nice little discussion going on over at MetaFilter inspired by my tax rebate post below. I invite you to add your thoughts. Also I'd like to clarify a bit about what I wrote yesterday. I don't have a problem really with the way the tax relief works. It makes sense to me. Contrary to the belief of some of my readers, I do understand the way income tax works in the United States, and economics for that matter.
What bothers me is how this whole story has been twisted around. Dawn followed up yesterday with another great link to the IRS's 2001 Advance Payments Information page which states,
The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 approved by Congress and signed by President Bush directs the Treasury to send checks to most income taxpayers this year, giving them an advance payment of a 2001 tax credit.
So why isn't it referred to like this in the media? Why is everyone pushing this as a rebate and making it sound like some sort of refund? Fucking politics. Fucking media. You know what's funny though? www.irs.gov lead the rankings of fastest growing domain ending July 22, 2001 according to Neilsen/NetRatings and 58% of the site's audience visited the page on tax relief, according to this ZDNet article.