A Cynical Look On Stimulus Packages

Some numbers run by FY707:

The bottom number is the combined amount that Taxpayers WILL get.
Essentially, this is a spreadsheet that shows us exactly how much money each American could have gotten if it weren't lost in all kinds of "legislation" or spent on all kinds of things that have nothing to do with stimulating the economy. In theory, each American could have gotten at least twice as much as they will in total.

6 comments:

godelleb said...

The program is complete BS. Temporary cash of $13,000 to each household would have worked much better. Temporary cash would have needed to be printed and disbursed to each household. #13,000 for each would be fine. The money would contain an expiration date after which it would have no value. It must be spent by that date or it is worthless. It also must be turned in to the federal government by that date by any company that with a federal tax ID# for its equivalent in actual cash. It could not be turned in by anyone without that number. That accomplishes everything that the federally approved plan does and more. It works on its own and saves the banks as well as the auto industry.

Mr. Sam said...

Personally, I think some kind of temporary credit card passed out to all taxpayers with X amount of money on it would work best. They would be forced to spend all of the money before the card expired, on top of that they could place restrictions on what it could be spent on if they wanted "IE no paying off debts" And it would also be easy to track where it went.

But we would rather spend billions on Honeybee insurance and other such stupid endeavors.

Mr. Sam said...

Debit card rather

godelleb said...

In general, I really don't mind how the cash, whatever form it would come in, would be used as long as it was used quickly. If it paid off debts then the companies that received it are helped. But, the key to everything is to be sure that it is spent within a certain time period. That is no guarantee and it creates a huge hole in any program.

I'll elaborate a bit on the "hole" mentioned above. This type of program relies on people to continue to spend their cash as they normally would and to use the additional money for added expenditures. I would just use the temporary money to buy things and put the actual cash that I would have spent into investments. That does nothing to stimulate the economy. People like me are the reason that the Fed wants to control where the money goes instead of relying upon the free market.

Mr. Sam said...

Yes, damn those brainy smarties.

Mr. Sam said...

Although, I would say that it depends on how you invested the money. I'd say that many investments create jobs (jobs that produce a worthwhile product or service) Which is good for the economy-- just not short term.