Tax rebate checks will begin going out in May, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said after the House's passage of a Senate-approved $167 billion economic stimulus package Thursday.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: "This legislation is not everything that I wanted. But I am very happy."

The House of Representatives voted 380-34 to send the measure to the president a few hours after Democratic and Republican senators reached accord and ended a dayslong stalemate over the legislation.

Earlier, two White House officials said President Bush would support the package. The bill will be delivered Friday to the White House, with Bush's signing likely sometime next week, Democratic aides said.

The package, which passed the Senate 81-16, will send rebate checks to 130 million Americans in amounts of $300 to $600 for people who have an income between $3,000 and $75,000, plus $300 per child. Couples earning up to $150,000 would get $1,200.

The checks are an advance on next year's refunds, and most, if not all of the money, will be deducted from taxpayers' refunds in 12 months' time.

"My team will be sitting down with the IRS tomorrow, and the IRS, right in the middle of tax filing season ... will be working to get checks out," said Paulson, who helped broker the deal.

Paulson said the process of sending the checks would be completed by the end of summer.

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The leadership of both parties hailed the efforts that moved the package through Congress.

"You don't see anybody up here gloating about being a winner," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said after the House vote.

"There were no winners or losers in this except the American people, who saw us rise above any differences we might have had and work to agreement on what is the No. 1 issue, and that is our slowing economy."

House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said, "The House gave a little, the Senate gave a little. I think that's what the American people expect of us -- to find some way to come together and deal with the problems the American people are facing."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, called the approval an "example of how government is supposed to work." Reid said, "Legislation is the art of compromise, and that compromise comes very hard sometimes. It came very hard this time."

After the House passed a stimulus package last week, Senate Democrats made a number of changes that Republicans would not accept, saying that they were too big and loaded with special-interest provisions.

After Democrats were unable to break a Republican filibuster threat, the leadership headed back to the negotiating table, finally agreeing to leave rebate check amounts at the House level. (Senate Democrats had lowered them and raised the income caps.) The Senate measure also added checks to more than 20 million Social Security beneficiaries and 250,000 handicapped veterans and their widows who were left out of the original House bill.

The Democrats dropped demands for an extension of unemployment benefits, energy assistance for low-income households and tax breaks for energy providers.

"This legislation is not everything that I wanted," Reid said. "But I am very happy."

While the members of Congress and Paulson applauded the bill's quick passage, a survey found that about one in four Americans (26 percent) said they would spend their tax rebates.

Nearly half (46 percent) said they plan to use the rebate to pay off debt and a quarter (28 percent) would save the money, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers and UBS Securities, which jointly commissioned the study of 1,005 households between January 31 and Sunday.

"The money will go into the hands of lenders rather than retailers," said Mike Niemira, chief economist of the International Council of Shopping Centers.

The crushing weight of Americans' debt load was underscored Thursday when the Federal Reserve reported Americans owed a record $943.5 billion in credit card debt at the end of December.

Including loans other than mortgages and home equity lines of credit, Americans are shouldering a record $2.5 trillion in debt.

That amount increased during the month by a relatively modest 2.1 percent, an indication that Americans have been restraining their spending


source: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/02/08/economic.stimulus/

Justthe shear amount of debt boggles my mind. $2.5 trillion in debt not including mortgages and home equity loan? Wow!!!

46% said they would use it to pay off debt. I wonder what the actually numbers will be. I say most of the 46% will spend atleast some of the money.