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Comment by tdavis | Hacker News Reader

"Obama and Biden will establish a new American Opportunity Tax Credit that is worth $4,000 a year in exchange for 100 hours of public service a year."

Apparently, if you refuse, you don't get a tax break.

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They're changing this page as we're commenting on it. The stuff about tax credits wasn't there the last time I looked. They've also changed the wording about "requiring" certain numbers of hours.

They seem to be making this stuff up on the fly...

If "making this stuff up on the fly" means "revising the policy proposals based on complaints from the public solicited via the Internet", then: bravo!

Yeah, but it would be better if their first drafts showed a little more thought.

Iteration can work for policy, too. Regardless, I think the take-away here is that people shouldn't write articles like this based off of vague intentions. What someone wants to do, what they think is a good idea now and what actually happens can all be very different things.

I'd sure like to see a statement about who's writing this stuff and how final it is. Still, it's a lot better than secreting the process away behind locked doors, the way our current energy policy was made.

Promotional material on websites isn't policy. I'm sure the actual proposed legislation will give you plenty of ammunition to snipe with.

The tax credit has definitely been mentioned at barackobama.com for a while.

that's how progressives operate. their ideology doesn't hold up to close scrutiny so they get very good at dodging and weaving.

yes! feel the hatred flow through you! strike this comment down and complete your training!

you know perfectly well why you are being downmodded

I would think something is wrong with the system if all my comments were up voted. most other places my pro-capitalism anti-progressive votes get down voted a lot more than they do here.

And if your comments were better thought out then they might even get upmodded. Generalizations of the form "Ohhh yeah, progressives always do X" aren't useful.

generalizations are extremely useful and everyone uses them all the time. people just get a warm fuzzy feeling out of denying the few they are conscious of.

I think it's pretty damn reasonable. An incredibly good deal, even.

A good deal for whom?

College students that make less than $40/hour after taxes yet pay exactly $4000 in taxes.

The credit is fully refundable, so it amounts to getting paid $40/hr for a make-work project.

I wonder if there are going to be limitations on that... I could definitely be a student for a few more years if it meant I got paid $40/hr to do what I'd normally volunteer to do anyway.

Fully refundable, meaning you get a check back from the government if you aren't paying enough taxes? Awesome, I can't wait for the handouts to begin.

Yep. It's a giant $40/hr work-study program. Considering my university only paid work-study kids about $6/hr, this will obviously be very popular.

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