Wednesday, February 18, 2009

My Stimulus Plan

Now that the president has signed the new economic stimulus plan the pundits are all over it saying that it won't work for this reason, that reason, and all these other reasons. I don't know if it will work or not but at least it's SOMETHING! The non-plan of the last eight years didn't work out so well, and the Republican plan (see my prior Partisan Politics post) to simply give tax cuts instead of money was both laughable and typical. If I made $250,000+ per year I'd love a tax break. However if I'm currently making $0 per year what the hell does a tax break do for me? As a talking head on TV pointed out last night the tax breaks in the current plan would result in roughly $13 more per week in the pockets of the average family. That won't even pay for a neighborhood kid to shovel your driveway! Notice I said the 'average' family here, so Donald Trump and Bill Gates would probably see a more robust difference but they're probably not really concerned with having their driveway cleared. But here's my idea - unlike the last stimulus plan where checks were mailed that recipients either paid bills with or stuffed into their mattress I say the treasury issue a debit card to each taxpayer for $10,000. You can't put it in the bank or pay your electric bill with it but only buy a product or a service like plane tickets, a TV, furniture or even put it towards a new car as a down payment.  That accomplishes two things: people are able to purchase new or replacement items for their homes or go lay on a beach for a week and try to forget this whole mess, and products would start moving off the shelves in stores and lots. And then factories would need to make more furniture and televisions and cars so they'd need people to build or assemble those things. People would be brought back from unemployment and this entire current cycle will start spinning in the right direction. It can snowball upwards just like it has snowballed down. Anybody with me on this?

1 comment:

Goofster said...

YEAH MAN! I've got it spent already!