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Categories - Copywriting - Shopping - Free Online Business Help - Telecommunications Services Articles: Finance - A Better Stimulus Plan By Web Smith With the current economic stimulus being argued in Congress and the Senate, except for the tax break portion, it will take two years before the money starts hitting the economy. It must go through the process. The amount being directly being spent by the federal government has to go through committee, documents prepared, and then it must be allocated. After it is allocated, requests for bids must be prepared and sent out to the companies that will be doing the work. The companies then have to prepare their bids and get them in. The bids have to be evaluated and if vendors successfully raise any issues, the process may have to start all over. For things like education, roads, and bridges where the money will be spent by the states, after the federal government goes through the process of allocating the money, the states must then begin their bidding process. Each one of these steps costs the taxpayers money, meaning that money will be taken out of the economy in the process, and, at the rate of job loss and business closure, the companies may not even exist to do the work in two years. There will most likely be another 12 million Americans out of work, with the balance even more in debt, because all of the money, even the tax breaks, will be borrowed. Thus, the value of the money, when is finally earned, will be less than it is today because of the inflation resulting from the additional money supply.
There are ways to stimulate the economy in a more immediate manner wile avoiding the government bottleneck and without borrowing more money at time when our entire GDP for this year is already owed to a private bank and foreign countries.
The first step is to quit borrowing and quit giving the money to banks. The money supply has already been increased by over 70% in 4 months and most of the increase is being horded by the banks that were the beneficiaries of ill-advised bailouts that did nothing. This horde of money is on the verge of making it impossible for the economy to recover because when the economy starts to recover, it will be dumped on us immediately and substantially devaluate the dollar.
Many more banks are going to close. As banks close, forgive the debt they are holding instead of selling it to other banks for pennies on the dollar. The population generates 70% of the economy and this will cause people to immediately have more spendable income. Minus a house payment and credit card payments, they will buy cars, boats, furniture, electronics, and everything else that they need or want. All industry will benefit. The added benefit will be that the banking industry will be downsized to its proper place in the economy and will no longer be able to strip it of its wealth. As the population has more money it will be deposited into healthy banks and they also will benefit and become stronger. If the government can take our money and give it to the banks, they can give it back to us when they fail.
Issue $500 billion worth of tax cuts and don't borrow to replace the lost revenue. Cut the budget. Implement these cuts through a reduction in federal withholding from paychecks. Again, the increase in spendable income will benefit all industries and the government will recover its tax revenue from the increased tax base as people go back to work.
Stand down and start pulling our troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Close unnecessary foreign military bases, reopen ones here, and let our soldiers spend their money here instead of there. The benefits to the economy are obvious and all of the money to support these things must be borrowed driving us deeper and deeper into debt while doing nothing to protect us from harm. The money that will be saved can go towards the budget deficit and to shore up and modernize our weapons systems.
Stop all non-humanitarian foreign aid. The government does not have the right to take your money and give it to someone else , let alone use it to shore up other countries' militaries. Right now, the majority of foreign aid is sent to countries with the catch that it be used to buy weapons from us. Even most of our humanitarian foreign aid never finds the populations that it is intended for. Instead, it is used to prop up corrupt governments while their populations continue to suffer. The billions sent to Africa and Haiti for centuries only to have nothing change proves this. Our military industrial complex will be kept as busy modernizing our army and nothing stops them from selling approved weapons systems internationally.
Stop passing and roll back regulations, especially federal regulations, that have an adverse effect on small business at the bequest of large business. The vast majority of Americans are employed by small business and as long as we continue to destroy them, the economy will only get worse. One example is a regulation that will take place or has taken place in February, depending on when you are reading this, that will require all toys to be evaluated by a third party testing group before they can be sold. This will put many small businesses, artists, work at home moms, and craftsmen out of business. You will not be able to make a cabbage patch type doll, doll dress, dollhouse, toy car, children’s book, kid’s desk or chair, playhouse, etc. and sell it before paying for an expensive test, which means that you will not do it. This was lobbied for by big business. The better way to protect children under the Constitution, without causing harm to the economy, is to simply pass a law that says that if you sell anything that harms kids, you will be arrested and/or fined.
53% of all immigrants are now on welfare and being supported by American taxpayers. Stop issuing green cards and H-1B visas and start deporting illegal aliens. This will provide relief to the states who are supporting them and to our overburdened schools and healthcare system. The benefits of this will be reaped as they are deported and Americans take the new jobs that are created. While we are all descendants of immigrants, even the American Indians, have always welcomed immigration, and we actually need it to help our country grow, we can't continue to take on more immigrants at a time when we can't provide them with an opportunity. We can re-institute controlled immigation when the economy merrits it.
These things will put trillions of dollars back into the economy, save thousands of businesses, and put millions of Americans back to work quickly without borrowing a dime while reducing the debt that is enslaving us. State and federal budgets will improve from the added tax base and the reduction in waste and money will abound for the private sector to invest in growth technology.
We can also fix health care while improving the economy with little or no cost to taxpayers using this plan and we can transition to green energy while encouraging economic growth with this plan.
One may think that these things are not going to happen, but one should ask, why not? Everything in this stimulus is Constitutionally legal and should happen.
Web Smith is a former telecom and computer industry executive who has founded or been a founder of seven technology companies. He is currently a copywriter, business, sales and marketing consultant, and website owner. You can access some of his work here.
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