What Will You Do With Your Extra $13?

The Pork-a-Palooza math just got a bit more interesting as Judd Gregg, R-N.H., has decided NOT to take the job as Secretary of Commerce in the Obama cabinet, which means he will be available to vote on the cloture motion for the final passage of the bill.

With Uncle Teddy back in Florida, that means one of the three GOP quislings - Snowe, Collins and Specter - will have to cast the 60th and deciding vote, and all three will have to stay on board.

It's hard to know exactly what's in the conference report and what isn't, since Reid & Pelosi seem reluctant to let anyone actually see the printed document (although lobbyists on Washington's famed K street are brandishing huge chucks of it, it is reported). We know that several of the items the trio of Republican "moderates" negotiated are no longer in the bill, so it will be interesting to see if all stay "stuck."

Assuming it passes, one disappointment for many people I know is that the "tax relief" for 95 percent of Americans is going to be far, far less than they had hoped. It isn't going to be a big rebate check. For another thing, you have to be working to get the "relief" from your FICA withholding, the extra money doesn't hit your paycheck until June, and even then it amounts of about $13 per week. The total per worker is $400.

Next year, since the program starts in January, the amount will actually dip to about $8 per week. (Eight dollars times 50 weeks is $400.)

Don't spend it all in one place. Spread it around. The economy needs your money, honey.

Also, if you were one of those people counting on the $15,000 tax credit for a first-time home purchase (on a principal residence), you just got screwed out of it in the conference committee. The credit, which was a Republican proposal added in House voting, got tossed.

Maybe you can get a good job consulting on Harry Reid's new multi-billion dollar mag-lev bullet train from LA to Vegas. Somehow or other it magically appeared.