A Modest Stimulus Proposal

Somehow, I don't think the Congressional Democrats have economic stimulus in mind in pushing their "stimulus" bill. The weekend's action illuminates this point. If economic stimulus was really the point of the bill, it wouldn't have so much of its spending from 3 to 19 years out from the present. In addition, if stimulus was really the point, Congressional Democrats would not have blocked a "trigger" amendment to cut off the bill's spending if the economy recovered since such post-recovery stimulus would only cause an economy-destroying inflation. Indeed, this bill is so bad the Congressional Budget Office says it will damage the economy in the longer term.

But then this is really a spending bill, not a stimulus bill. That being the case, I would suggest Mrs Critter's substitute for the Congressional Democrats' bill:

1. All taxpayers keep all their income and spend it any way they wish, thereby creating many jobs.

2. The Congress spends money as they wish.

3. The Treasury prints as much money as is needed to cover Congress' expenditures.

This proposal is exquisitely simple — Congress is already doing numbers 2 and 3, and needs only to find enough honesty to include number 1 explicitly (rather than implicitly) in the nation's fiscal policy. And by doing away with all tax collections (income, excise, estate, etc.), the nation will do away with an expensive and useless exercise and recognize that it can never collect enough taxes to make any difference with regard to Congressional spending. In fact, we will save money by doing away with the IRS and other associated agencies.