I’m always amazed at how things are forgotten so easily by so many people in this country. If I remember correctly(very big IF) I was going on SSDI and somewhere around that Obama was elected and I received a letter from Obama’s staff saying I would be gifted a check for approximately $2-300 dollars. I was eagerly anticipating this, but as time went on I sort of lost track of it.
I am wondering if anyone else remembers this promise and the details and dollar amounts.
I don’t remember anything exactly like that, but I do remember getting some kind of campaign letter from him, promising some sort of supercalifragilisticexpialidocious benefits if he gets elected, and “seemingly” signed by him. It struck me as a medium-sleazy campaign letter, and hardly likely to be of the “I am Barack Obama and I approve of this message” category. It actually had his signature (or facsimile thereof).
Sorry I can’t quote from it, but I did the obvious thing with it and forgot all about it until your OP reminded me.
(I still voted for Obama, which I was going to do anyway.)
Did they promise additional money if you helped his Kenyan/Nigerian friends to get the frozen funds out of their country?
Maybe the letter also mentioned special poll hours for Obama supporters in the next election, they can come and vote 4 hours after the polls close for other voters? Just bring this letter…
Duh. USA ranks what, 37th in math world-wide. What, about 70 million people voted for Obama (oh, wait, now that they’re handing out money, it’s closer to 100%). 70M x $2,000 is $140 billion. Considering the total cost for a presidential campaign is in the neighbourhood of a billion or two, I don’t think the campaign is going to pay for it. As a tax expenditure, the total budget was 3.7 trillion, so 140 billion is no tiny part of that when congress is fighting over every last billion. I’m surprised nobody in the Republican party has raised stink about this expenditure. There must be a reason.
Anyone can print pretty letters, photoshop in what they need, and send it out the gullible and naïve to stir the pot…
I’ve never heard of anything remotely like this, in terms of increased benefits. There was a temporary reduction in the payroll tax paid by employees, which was instituted in 2010 and amounted to an average of several hundred dollars in tax cuts per worker.
Or how things are misremembered by so many people, or misinterpreted by so many people. Let’s not discount those possibilities, which I think are more parsimonious explanations of what you are experiencing.
I seem to remember a lot of people got an unexpected tax refund under Bush at some point.
Yeah, I remember getting a letter informing me I’d be getting a couple hundred bucks (I may even still have it), but it was from Dubya.
Here’s what I remember about those “gifts”:
Romney Says He Lost Because Obama Gave “Gifts” to Blacks and Latinos
Bush tax rebate checks article from 2008
I’m nowhere near collecting Social Security, but I remembered the one-time payment thing actually happening. The social security website backs up my memory.
According to the link, you should have received an extra $250 by May of 2009.
It was part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (as Mithras’ link says) and intended to help people hit hardest by the recession. The wiki page has more info.
Misplaced decimal point error. Nobody even hinted we’d all get $2,000 – It was more in the range of $200 that we were all going to get. Which, as has been pointed out, may have in fact sort-of happened with tax rebates and/or the payroll tax “holiday” and/or that Social Security rebate or whatever they called it. And may have happened (or at least set in motion) during the Bush II years.
And of course, those extra 4 polling hours (for Democrats only, of course) aren’t just so more of them can vote. It’s so they can vote again ! :rolleyes: 
Sorry.
We just had a scandal here about the (winning) conservative party where someone hired a robo-caller service to misdirect voters for other parties (“Your polling station has changed…”)
If it was intended to be voter bribery it was very badly done, since it was well after the election and paid regardless of who you voted for. As any political strategist would tell you, it was also wasted because the voting public has a memory of about 12 months, so a “bribe” three and a half years before the next election is wasted.
If it was that payment - maybe it was just as stated, a means on stimulating the economy. (“Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”) Who is more likely to spend money right away, but the more needy?