The Anchoress
Everyone is talking about how much money the government is spending, but very little attention is being paid to where they are spending it or what they are buying with it.
The government is putting money into banks, even when the banks don’t want it, in hopes that the banks will put it into circulation. But the latest statistics shows that banks are lending even less money now than they were before the government dumped all that cash on them.
Even if it had worked, putting cash into banks, in hopes that they would put it into circulation, seems a rather roundabout way of doing things, especially when the staggering sums of money involved are being justified as an “emergency” measure. No matter how many times President Barack Obama tells us that these “extraordinary times” call for “swift action,” the kind of economic policies he is promoting take effect very slowly, no matter how quickly the legislation is rushed through Congress. It is the old Army game of hurry up and wait.
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If the Beltway politicians aren’t really trying to solve this crisis as quickly as they could, what are they trying to do?
I agree. Let’s have a stimulus bill with no roundaboutation: Just give every taxpayer, no matter how much they pay or how little, a lump sum of say $67,372.42 Yes, I pulled that number out of my hat, but I’m pretty sure that’s how Mrs. Pelosi and congress do it, too.
Allow people to spend the money or make mortgage payments with it, and eliminate the many, many middlemen who are waiting around to get bailout money they’ll only mismanage, anyway.
There. That’s it. My 1-2-3 stimulus program.
1) Give all taxpayers that amount of money.
2) Make the Bush tax cuts permanent.
3) Make people who don’t pay their taxes pay them.
You have a better stimulus plan than what Mrs. Pelosi and the Congress are offering? Feel free to share it.
Shrinkwrapped says “We’re in trouble!”:
When something is so odious and so obvious that I find myself nodding my head in agreement with Paul Krugman, we are in a lot of trouble:
Question: what happens if you lose vast amounts of other people’s money? Answer: you get a big gift from the federal government — but the president says some very harsh things about you before forking over the cash.
As I see it we have a choice: continue to throw money at entities who mismanage it, and bureaucracies that fritter it away, or we give it to the people who earned it in the first place.
Hey…this big-government thing is NOT working out. I don’t want the socialist alternative, please. Just give me back my money, okay? I’d like a refund. You can keep enough to fund the military, protect the borders, feed the hungry and the elderly, keep the Schip program where it is (in other words leave off the addition of benefits for 24 year old “children”, please) and the senior prescription drug plan, and to send some money to cities for infrastructure. I want the rest back. I do NOT want my tax money help establish tax breaks for Hollywood. I do not want 160 Million to go to the “paid volunteers” of ACORN, thanks. And I think Congress should rescind the damn raise they just got. No one else I know is getting a raise this year except the teachers, whose union negotiated quite a nice one for them, and Congress does not deserve a raise.
How about it? Do you have any thoughts on the stimulus bill? Feel free to share them. Even better, share them here.
Meanwhile, even France thinks the O-Stimulus is too socialistic.
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