Economic Stimulus Package Includes Provison to Exclude Those Married To Foreign Spouses
#%$!! Does it ever feel like we Democrats are bailing out the boat with a teaspoon?
Rebate excludes many taxpayers with foreign spouses
By JULIANA BARBASSA, Associated Press Writer Sun May 11th 2008
SAN FRANCISCO - When Maulit Shelat heard about the Bush administration’s plan to pump up the economy by sending out stimulus checks, he sat down with his wife and drew up a list of priorities: first up, remodeling the bathroom.
But Shelat is married to a foreigner who still hasn’t completed the often years-long process that allows her to apply for a Social Security number. Her not having that number makes even him ineligible for the tax rebate checks that started going out last week because they filed jointly.
He is among an estimated hundreds of thousands of taxpayers — from legal immigrants to soldiers based abroad — who won’t be getting a share of the stimulus package because of a provision aimed at preventing illegal immigrants from getting rebates.
“I would have fed this economy as well,” said Shelat, an Indian chemical engineer living with his wife and two children in the Buffalo, N.Y.-area. “We live within this economy, work, pay taxes, do everything by the book. Whatever the reasons for giving this economic stimulus package, they apply to us as well.”
When lawmakers decided to send out the checks, ranging from $300 to $600 per adult taxpayer, plus another $300 for each child, they formulated it so only taxpayers who have Social Security numbers would qualify.
The rule unintentionally caught many taxpayers who would have qualified for the bonus, except they filed jointly with a spouse who’s immigration status doesn’t allow them to have a Social Security number. Among them are some of the 288,000 troops stationed overseas who may have married a foreigner.
“An American soldier who has married someone from another country and is waiting for an (immigration) petition to get approved — that soldier not getting that check is stupid,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., whose district includes Silicon Valley, home of many high-tech workers who fell through the rebate cracks. Click here to read the rest of this dumb story from the Associated Press.