Power to the People – the Cars & Houses Stimulus Plan
By Just Stupid on Mar 3, 2009 in Stupid Politicians
The right way to spend the $700B stimulus money is to let the US citizens do it.
President Obama has just signed the latest stimulus package, spending nearly $800B of our money. And we all know that our federal government is already planning the next $700B stimulus package. The current program is thousands of pages long and I believe it is 8 inches thick. Just imagine the mess we have ahead of us. Every American fears the money will just be wasted – the stock market has already had a terrible reaction to the bill.
First, let’s provide 20 million people a voucher for $10,000 that is redeemable towards the purchase of a new car at any US car dealership. It does not matter if it is "foreign" made or not. Most people understand that Fords are made in Michigan and Mexico and Toyotas are made in Ohio and Japan. If you buy a new car at a dealer in the US, you save jobs at that dealership, jobs at all the U.S. suppliers for that dealer, jobs at the manufacturing plants, jobs at the parts distributors, and so on. You also provide tax revenue that your federal, state and local governments desperately need. This would cost $200B ($10,000 X 20M = $200B) and would flow through the entire economy, putting America back to work. If it turns out it helps Japan, Korea and UK auto makers too, then great. We need their economies to succeed as well. Of course, we have to determine exactly who gets these vouchers. I would choose the 20 million head of households, who had the lowest 2008 earnings according to their tax returns. This means only tax paying, U.S. citizens would be eligible. The IRS should be able to have this list ready in an afternoon.
Second, let’s provide 20 million people a voucher for $25,000 toward the purchase of a new home. For some inexplicable reason, this was drastically changed at the last minute in the current plan. Instead of handing this money to financial institutions to mismanage, let it flow to them through the actual purchase of homes. This will stimulate the financial sectors, the construction industry, retailers who sell products to home builders and home owners, the service industries that support home owners, real estate agents, insurance agents, and countless others. This would cost $500B ($25,000 X 20M = $500B) and would flow through the entire economy putting America back to work. Similar to the new car plan, I would choose the 20 million head of households who had the lowest earnings according to their tax returns. Again, it means only tax paying, U.S. citizens would be eligible.
I realize the devil is in the details in both cases. We have to put all the controls in place to make sure it is safe from fraud, we have to make sure that banks will negotiate with buyers who want to purchase homes in foreclosure (the banks have been given billions to do this right?), and make sure that each buyer can financially handle the purchase. We may even want to go so far as to make the vouchers transferable. If a household receives a voucher but does not want a new car or home, maybe they can sell it to someone who does. Clearly this has serious fraud implications, but it would also have double the impact. Imagine if household A sells their $25,000 voucher to household B for $10,000. Household A just gained $10,000 more to spend, and household B just saved $15,000 on a new home. Now that is real stimulus!
We will also have to make sure the millions of other tax payers understand this is for the greater good and will eventually benefit them too as the economy starts to grow again. I am certain that President Obama, being the outstanding orator that he is, can make this clear to everyone. By the way, our household will not qualify for a voucher. So I propose this plan not in a self-serving way, but believing in the greater cause.
Of course House and Senate will have to debate this, turn it into a 500 page document with lots of favors and pork in it. Or maybe not! If the citizens rise up and tell them we won’t take it anymore, maybe, just maybe, we can get a simple measure passed that is a huge step in fixing our (and the World’s) economy. Once we start buying cars and homes, everything else will take care of itself. Even foreclosures will get cleaned up as the housing market starts growing again.
The “Cars & Houses Plan” is a simple plan that puts our citizens in charge of spending the next $700B stimulus package. Isn’t that a lot better than handing it to a few dozen companies and hundreds of government officials who have already spent us into the ground? After all, it’s our money!
[note: this is a more serious approach to a post we had a few weeks ago]
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Ruth | Mar 3, 2009 | Reply
This should be sent to McCain and Kyle. It’s better than anything Congress has come up with.
Perhaps send it to the interviewer who challenged the “voluntary taxes” idiot on the stupid post you made.