President Bush’s stimulus package has started sending our rebate checks. Over seven million have been sent out since Friday, totaling more than $7 billion. In all, $168 billion will be doled out to the American public, in hopes that they will spend it, giving a boost to the economy. While I didn’t support his candidacy, Governor Mike Huckabee did have the best perspective on this plan:
“One of the concerns that I have is that we’ll probably end up borrowing this $150 billion from the Chinese,” he said. “And when we get those rebate checks, most people are going to go out and buy stuff that’s been imported from China. I have to wonder whose economy is going to be stimulated the most by the package. “
He then went on and talked about building a highway to save the economy. Band-aid solution, at best, Governor.
Let’s make some lasting change. How about a $2.2 trillion rebate program, followed by an investment of over $600 billion dollars in American business? We can do this in two easy steps.
Step One: Let Me Keep My Paycheck
The economic stimulus package is the refunding of tax dollars paid to the government. In March, the government spent $42 million dollars just to tell you that you would soon have your money back. They spent money to pay someone to shuffle the paperwork to get your money transferred back to your account electronically, they spent money on paper to print the checks, spent money on envelopes, spent money to set up a website. All this just to tell you that you are getting your property back.
Why not just skip the middleman and keep your money to start with?
By enacting the FairTax, consumers would not need a rebate, because they just keep it all to begin with. My stimulus check, like everyone else’s, is a fraction of what I paid in taxes. If I were to get the entire thing back, all the taxes I paid, I could spend more, or invest more, in the American economy. You know that if we saw an increase in our take-home pay, we would then increase our standard of living. Whether it was paying off debt, or finally buying that PlayStation 3, we would spend it.
Letting Americans keep what they earn would equate to a $2.2 trillion stimulus package. If $150 billion will stimulate the economy, what do you think $2.2 trillion will do for it? And better yet, the federal government doesn’t have to borrow the money from anyone. It’s a win-win.
Step Two: Privatize Social Security
Social Security is nothing more than an intergenerational Ponzi scheme. It cannot sustain itself, and is destined to collapse upon itself, like all Ponzi schemes do. Before this happens, we can take action. The government spends over $600 billion on the Social Security Administration. Let’s redirect that money into the private sector and give citizens possession and ownership of their retirement.
Chile privatized their government retirement accounts, and it resulted in a boost in their economy:
Since the system started on May 1, 1981, the average real return on the personal accounts has been 10 percent a year. The pension funds have now accumulated resources equivalent to 70 percent of gross domestic product, a pool of savings that has helped finance economic growth and spurred the development of liquid long-term domestic capital market. By increasing savings and improving the functioning of both the capital and labor markets, the reform contributed to the doubling of the growth rate of the economy from 1985 to 1997 (from the historic 3 percent to 7.2 percent a year)…
If the United States suddenly invested an additional $600 billion, following the elimination of the IRS, what do you think businesses would do with all that money? I imagine they would expand. That means more jobs. That means more manufacturing plants, more businesses in towns that need them.
This economic stimulus package would be the largest transfer of power and responsibility from the government to the people in the history of the country. It would strengthen America and Americans. It’s time for lasting change from Washington instead of Band-Aid solutions in between elections.
