Hello folks. I'm back, at least for a little while.
So... since I have been gone, the President and Congress have passed the $800 billion stimulous package designed to get the economy going. The idea is that if enough money is spent by government, it will result in more jobs.
Let's leave the question of whether the government really has the power to "spend the country out of depression" aside for the moment.
The way the stimulous bill is set up, (and yes, I have read most of it), much of the money will be going to administrative costs, including salaries, office supplies, inspectors-general, etc. Billions of dollars used for something other than stimulating the economy.
If we took that same $800 billion and split it evenly among the roughly 300 million people currently in the USA, each person will receive roughly $2,700.
Under the current stimulus package, average Americans will receive roughly $676 for the year.
Seems to me that we get a better bang for the buck if we simply give the money that the government would be spending inefficiently to the people who would spend it the ways that they deem best. $800 billion dumped directly into the economy (as opposed to being spent by the government) would be quite stimulating to the economy. A family of 4 would suddenly see their income increase by $10,600. That's enough gelt to keep a family in their home for a while, pay for groceries and clothes for the family, make some house repairs, and perhaps save or invest a bit for the future.
And this assumes that everyone gets some money... regardless of whether they pay taxes or not. If we limit it to only those who actually pay taxes (there were 138 million individual tax returns filed in 2006), we could double the amount paid out per taxpayer and still spend less than the stimulous bill, with a more immediate effect than the stimulous bill.
This is simple math. So why don't the bigwigs in DC propose something similar?
The only thing I can come up with is the idea that they want to control us and they are using the economic downturn as an excuse to do that. They want to control where and how we spend our money. They want to control what we buy and sell, how much we pay for it, and what we use it for. That is why the stimulus bill is stuffed with garbage about greenhouse emmissions, global warming research, cap-in-trade, alternative fuels, and any other piece of legislation they feel is in the "best interest of society". The stimulus bill has nothing to do with stimulating anything. It is there to forward a political agenda, not an economic/financial/fiscal/ monetary agenda.
Comments are welcome as always.
