They got $787 billion, you got $13 a week

“A man’s labor is not only his capital but his life.
When it passes it returns never more. To utilize it, to prevent its wasteful squandering, to enable the poor man to bank it up for use hereafter,
this surely is one of the most
urgent tasks before civilization.–William Booth”

I can’t find it right now, but I was going to pull up the first column I wrote about the second 787 billion dollar “stimulus” package–Bush had the “little” one, remember at only $168 billion–and quote myself on how it was a bad idea and how it had no chance of working. I think I wrote something about how it’s only design was to payback political cronies and to grow government (thereby creating more political cronies), and that the normal working stiff wouldn’t benefit at all. At the risk of sounding childish, nyah nyah nyah nyah. Even the liberals have figured it out by now: I was right. I told you so. Like the bumper sticker says, “How’s that hope n’ change working for you?”

Now some of the more idiotic voices in Washington are making noises about “needing another stimulus,” because the first two weren’t “big enough.” Oh sure we do. Because sending all of our hard-earned money to government fatcats who look at us much the way foxes look at chickens just makes us oh-so-happy.  We don’t need money. Please. Just make sure Nancy Pelosi gets to go back on another week-long jaunt to Italy on our tax dollar. It just makes a tingle run up our legs to see the Obamas jetting around Europe while we’re home working two jobs trying to support our families….and them. We don’t need vacations. You let our “representatives” have them. (Yeah, O.K., I’m feeling a little sarcastic today.)

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the “stimulus” wasn’t going to work.  Let’s do a gut check, seeing as you and I are the salt of the earth: consumers, you know, the little people, the unwashed masses who make the economy go. If it excites us then the odds are, it will “stimulate” other consumers and it will help fix the economy, right?

Scenario A: The government decides to spend 787 billion dollars to help the economy come back. Common sense prevails and someone smart figures out that there are around 103 million households in the country. They split the 787 billion dollars equally and send every house in America a check for a little over seven thousand dollars. What could you do with seven grand? If you’re fairly average, you could pay off all your credit card debt. Would that stimulate your spending?  Would it make your life better? Would it untie that little knot that’s always there, worrying at you when the mail comes? Oh you bet it would. Or maybe you don’t carry plastic. Could that pay off your truck? Help you get that abcessed tooth fixed that you’ve been trying to ignore for months? Maybe you could add a deck to your house, or buy new carpet, or a boat, or take a trip somewhere with your family. Maybe you could just put it in the bank, and sleep a little better knowing it’s there, just in case.

Scenario B: Somebody smart figures that instead of sending out checks, it would be easier and cheaper and would still add up to 787 billion to just to let everyone keep all of their tax money….all of it….for nine months. You would get to bring home your entire paycheck. If you’re one of the self-employed people who pay quarterly because you have your own business, what could you do with all that money? You might be able to hire somebody else, or to buy some new equipment, or to pay off some debt. If you’re a working stiff, wouldn’t it be nice to get all of the money you work for? You could maybe upgrade your satellite service and get HBO and Showtime. You could save it up and pay your mortgage a few months in advance. You could get the cat neutered, or go to Foodland every week without obsessively counting the items in your cart, worried that you’ll “go over.” You could stop worrying so much about the electric bill. Maybe you could get your hair or nails done every week. Maybe you could spend Saturday fishing with your son instead of working that second job. You could relax a bit.

Feel that? Feel your head spinning around, thinking about all the possibilities? It’s sort of like buying a lottery ticket.  It’s worth the $1.00 just for all the fun of imagining what you’d do with the
money if you won.

Quite, er…..stimulating, isn’t it?

Scenario C: The government decides to spend the money on “infrastructure”…basically, they send it down the line to all of the little politicians under them. Senators get new furniture. Governors buy new limos and spray-on-tan machines. You may get a road out of it, or a new water plant (that they were going to have to build anyway), or Tallahassee may get a bridge for turtles, or Miami might get a new stadium. The influx of cash will help replace the revenue lost to governments because of the economy, so that they (unlike us) won’t have to tighten their belts much. They can keep going on “conferences” in fancy resorts, paying themselves and their flunkies six-figure salaries, giving jobs to their sons-in-law and buying themselves outrageous pensions on our dime. A few construction companies and engineers make some money, but it probably won’t affect you directly. All that money is primarily used so that political types can say “look what I did–vote for me!” during the next election. Chunks of it goes to pay off political groups like ACORN, unions, and the only people who get hired are consultants hired to write grants to….wait for it….get more stimulus money. Is that how YOU would have spent your $7,000? Are you feeling the excitement yet?  Do you feel the urge to go shopping? No, me either.

We don’t need a new “stimulus.”  What we need is a new bunch of politicians who realize that we the people can spend our own money better than they can. Vote ‘em out.