Tax Refunds Are YOUR Money

We tax all the others and pass the revenue on to you

Missouri is using $250 mil of its stim funds to pay state tax refunds. I have mixed feelings about that, trending to approval. MO wasn't supposed to use their taxpayers' money for something else, then say "It's gone now" when the refunds came due. OTOH, it honors its commitment to repay (California, how you doin?) and gets the money into hands that will spend it, the desired result of the stim in the first place. Still, it's quite a leap from "shovel-ready projects" to "here's your refund check" and thanks for the free money.


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Daniel Ikenburg at the LATimes checks in with more accurate numbers and predictions than my own:


"(T)o merely break even on taxpayers' 60% stake, GM will have to be worth $83 billion (60% of $83 billion is $50 billion). How and when will that ever happen? At its peak in 2000, GM's value (based on its market capitalization) stood at $60 billion. Thus, the minimum benchmark for "success" will require a 38% increase in GM's value from where it was in the heady days of 2000, when Americans were purchasing 16 million vehicles per year. U.S. demand projections for the next few years come in at around 10 million vehicles. Taxpayer ownership of GM is something we should all get used to, and the "investment" is only going to grow larger. Think Amtrak."