Stimulus - my way

OK, let's work with nice simple round numbers for all to understand...

The current plan is for the government to take about a trillion dollars - that is $1,000,000,000,000 - count them zeroes - from us, then spread it around, to stimulate the economy.

There are about 100 million households in the country - about 300 million total people with an average of three per household.  That's a nice wild guess, but it will do for this exercise.  Sure, there are lots of single people.  But there are lots of families with six or more kids.  Don't dwell on that.  Just run with it.

So, doing the math, the economic stimulus plan works out to about $10,000 per household.

Of spending.  On government programs and corporations.

Here's my way of doing this:

Let us, instead, give every household a check for $10,000.  Tell every head of household, "Here is ten grand for you to use to pay down bills, make a down payment on a house or a car, send a child to college, etc.; use it however you want or need to."

I think that would do more for the economy than any new giant government program.  Don't you?

Now here is the beautiful part - why not achieve this simply by suspending all taxation for six months?  That way, we don't even need to spend the money on implementing it, i.e., on processing and mailing checks and all that.  Just stop taking our money for half a year.

We are going into debt pushing this stimulus anyway.  It's not like we would have any net change in our deficit and debt.  One way, the Obama way, is take money from us now, then give more money out, then owe the difference later.  The other way, my way, is stop taking money from us now, give out what has already been pledged without giving out more, owe the difference later.

Either way, the net balance of the nation's debt is the same.  But my way, the people keep their money and use it for what they really need.  Obama's way, the government takes our money then decides - along with a bunch of Wall Street fatcats - how it should be spent for us.

Frankly, I trust the average Joe with his own money far, far more than I trust thousands of faceless bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. and unelected CEOs with anything.

Remember, kids, the people in charge, the certified-smart people, the ones with the graduate degrees from Harvard and Yale, they are the ones who got our country into this mess.  Maybe we should stop expecting them to get us out of it...

Comments

[Max]

Actually, if it was accomplished by tax reduction, then there wouldn't be any need to add to the future debt to be paid to the Chinese. Can't have that; best to just borrow.

[dana]

I think your Dow breaks 14,000 (Dec'07) article is hilarious now.

[ObiJohn]

Nice idea... but this will never happen. Why not? Because people don't miss something they never had (withheld taxes), but just try taking away something they have come to expect. Witholding taxes is the equivalent of boiling the frog gradually. Giving us our money for six months, and then taking it away, is like throwing the frong into the boiling water.

Obama and his cronies are smarter than this. Do you really think they want a revolution, or a bunch of pissed-off taxpayers, right before the '10 Congressional elections?