Let's talk about failures...

Ryan wants to talk about something we can all AGREE on, so let me outline in clear and concise terms what I feel is the FAILING of the new "stimulus bill"...

For "stimulus" to work on a national level, any "relief" the government may try to offer should only provide for the most basic of needs (food, water, and shelter where it doesn't exist at all... as in the height of the such disasters as Katrina, Hugo, Camile, the Great Depression, or the 1906 San Francisco earthquake)... otherwise, it should focus solely on "recovery".

For the government to effect recovery, it needs to find a way to provide the economy with an outlet for its products and labor. In other words, it needs to become a CONSUMER, not a PROVIDER. Deficit spending in the immediate sense of the words to maintain the economic cycle when the free market isn't able to do it is a GOOD THING.

For example: If US automakers can't manage to pay their costs because they aren't selling cars, and they take $33 billion dollars in funds to see them through, then the Feds should give them the money. They should THEN make the purchase of every NEW car made by that manufacturer 100% deductible from the buyers next year's taxes... because it was the TAX PAYER that bailed out the automaker... via the Feds. The buyer gets his new car, the bank gets its loan and interest earnings, the automaker moves another vehicle off the factory floor, and the government watches the $33 billion deficit evaporate in only 14 months, while still knowing they saved American jobs and businesses in the process.

THAT is Keynesian economics at work, my friends... and it would work, but not even the GOP would back such a plan. WHY?

What about jobs, you ask? Let's say that the Federal government falls back on the tried and true "public works" program. Perhaps they look to cities and rural areas that won't support a bond issue for new or improved school buildings because the economy won't allow the population to pay the increased property taxes. They hire the needed construction personnel and build or improve the schools, putting about 100,000 people to work, and contracting ONLY the architects and highly-skilled positions out. Everyone else is entry level... perhaps young and out-of-work, or just out of school, or laid off from some other sector... and works the job KNOWING it will only last between 18 and 36 months. These people now have an applicable and marketable skill that can see them into a promising career, the community/city/region has a new or improved school, and the Feds have provided labor, planning and financing to keep taxes low until such time as they can be raised to payback the Feds through reasonable tax increases... probably paid by the very people that BUILT the schools.

What we have today in our new "stimulus" bill is a long list of the unfullfilled wishes of the Democratic Party for the last 12 years, all rolled into one BIG spending package. That is the key phrase, for me: SPENDING. Even as a Democrat, I KNOW that spending doesn't equal RELIEF or RECOVERY... no matter WHAT Ryan might say. We could spend another TRILLION dollars, and it wouldn't do a damn thing to the economy, if the money was spent on non-recoverable or non-reusable items and programs. Adding an additional $1 billion to the US Census budget does not stimulate the economy, because there is nothing to show for the money spent once the census is completed. $1 billion spend on roads, or schools, or power plants, or railroads, or manufacturing and production outlets is stimulus, because the results provide the means to pay for themselves given only time and a fair market.

Is anyone going to fight with me over this?