What we need is some real Fix Da Recession.
On the other hand, the real FDR did have one thing right; he tried to build people’s confidence to get through the depression. What we have today are politicians including the president doing little but harp on the doom and gloom, which is hardly a way to get people up and spending.
It is hard to accept that a $800 billion package of spending and tax cuts is going to get us moving again when hundreds of billions of that amount is going to be spent by the government on the government.
Then we have things like this one. $15 billion to the Department of Education to “encourage states to raise academic standards, bolster teacher training and undertake more sophisticated testing and data gathering.†Say what? This money is to be spent at the discretion of the Secretary of Education.
Encourage, bolster, more sophisticated, how stimulating does all that sound? :-2
Nevertheless, who can argue with making sure our kids have a better education and who can argue that it is not a good investment for the years ahead, it is. However, the problem is that is has nothing to do with the economy in 2009, 2010 or 2011 or… The problem is that it is $15 billion we do not have to spend, but if we are going spend it anyway, it should be spent on something that gets into the economy before the end of 2009.
I have a few suggestions:
Give every child in the US $1.00 to spend on candy. That will help the local candy store, the supermarket and the local dentist and since mom or dad has to take child to the store that means they spend money doing so. See, it’s simple.
Here’s another, the government should subsidize the cost of popcorn at the movies, I mean talk about a rip off. Do you enjoy paying $5.95 for $.15 worth of corn (without extra butter)? So, if the government paid $5 of the $5.95, you would go to the movies more frequently and Tom Cruise, or Jennifer Aniston would have less of a chance of facing foreclosure, spread the wealth!
See, we have it backwards. Although it is now out of the stimulus package, there was a few million in there to help people stop smoking. Now I ask you how is that a good idea, it is counterproductive. If people stop smoking the recession moves on to the cigarette makers, the person smoking no longer goes to the store where they may purchase something else while buying cigarettes and, here is the big one, the person who stops smoking will likely be healthier and then we have gone and taken money from the economy. See, you have to be careful what you ask for (yes, I am kidding).
We don’t need politicians to come up with this stuff, we Americans know how to spend money, just give it to us without filtering it through a half dozen federal and state agencies. Oh wait, that would mean tax cuts, I hope Grandma and Harry aren’t reading this. :-3
So Mr. President, lighten up, you are going to spend lots of money that we don’t have, you are going to get to stimulate us all, but in the mean time, how about a little more of “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself†and less of social policy spending that only stimulates democrats from west of the Texas border. :-5
