Our Crazy Is Better Than Your Crazy

Proof that conservatives are not 'out of ideas' as they oppose Great Leader's TRILLION DOLLAR boondoggle of a hornswoggle. Linda Chavez proves that even working within the loony confines of PelosiCo's TRILLION DOLLAR tax grab, the right can come up with a more reasonable, workable, effective solution. Of course, as they complain that the Republicans 'brought nothing to the table', you MUST recall (and REMIND those around you) that PelosiCo REFUSED to even allow a Republican near the table (admitted by CBS' Maggie Rodriguez- "I mean, what are -- they're not -- their voices aren't going to be heard anyway, as we saw with this economic stimulus plan."):

But if we're going to have a trillion-dollar stimulus, here's a modest proposal for a better way to do it. This approach would cost about the same as the Democrats' current plan, but it could put money into people's pockets in weeks, not years.

Why not give every man, woman, and child in the United States $3,000 to spend on pretty much anything they choose. The price tag would be about $900 billion, barely more than what is in the House package now. But unlike the Democrats' plan, which has government making the decision about how the money should be spent, people would get to decide for themselves.

There'd be no limits on who could receive the money -- a rich man would get the same three grand that a poor woman or child received. The program isn't intended to redistribute wealth, but to infuse the economy with cash. The only rule that would apply is that the money would have to be spent within a certain period of time, say 18 months. In addition, most of the money would have to be spent on buying things: payment toward a new or used car, down payment on a home, some new appliances, home remodeling, clothes, electronics, or even a vacation. Hey, you could even use it to put solar panels on your roof or erect a windmill in your background (sic) if that's what you wanted. But only a portion of the money could go to paying down credit card or current mortgage debt -- say, a third -- and then only if the person was already two months in arrears in their payments.

In order to keep this cash distribution about as simple as possible but still allow the money to be tracked so that we know that people are actually buying stuff not hording the money in their bank accounts, the government would disperse it in the form of debit cards linked to the individual's Social Security number. The government could surely subcontract this out to one of the large credit card companies for a small administrative fee charged to the cardholder, similar to what some companies charge now for gift cards. And recipients would receive a statement that they would have to submit with their tax return within the time period to ensure they played by the rules.

The virtue of this plan would be that the market would allocate the money far more efficiently than any scheme government bureaucrats could come up with. A young family of four would suddenly have $12,000 that they could use toward a down payment on a home or a new car. Imagine how quick the inventory in depressed housing would dry up if suddenly young families had that kind of cash to put down on a home. And automobiles would go racing off the car lots.

Now, of course, all this cash could be inflationary -- government spending usually is. And we know all those debit cards would be paid for with borrowed money -- but so is Nancy Pelosi's "stimulus package." Nonetheless, the beauty would be that consumer spending would bring the country out of recession, create new private sector jobs and protect existing ones, and the government would get back at least a portion of what it gave away in taxes from people who were suddenly working instead of drawing unemployment compensation.