How bad ideas succeed

So the President, the Congress, and the candidates running for President all agree that the impending recession justifies a tax rebate to virtually all Americans. They will haggle over details, but the cost will be $100,000,000,000 or so. More quietly, they will provide another $50,000,000,000 as business tax breaks.

Listening to the Democratic candidates' debate the other night, it was striking how lock step they sounded, cynically worshiping at the feet of the great tax rebate concept. Who's going to be in opposition?

Certainly, $600 for most taxpayers ($1,200 for couples) sounds like free money to most of us. Add in, say, three kids (at $300 per), and that's $2,100 for a family of five. The money should arrive by June.



The justification for this, of course, is that by sending us free money, Uncle Sam calculates that we will go right out and spend it. I don't know about you, but I'm not built that way. After all, I'm part Scottish. My cousin Dan sent me this photo of our Grandma and her bike. He also included some hilarious details about her (lack of) driving skills, which maybe I can post at a future date.

In any event, if I get a check, I'll be depositing it or paying off debts. I suspect a lot of other Americans may do the same.

You see, the entire Keynesian idea that we will continue to spend, spend, spend has long since become the dominant feature of our world-dominant economy. That's right. Every pack of batteries, every gadget, every vacation, every everything you choose to spend money consuming directly stimulates the massive U.S. economy.

It is like a ravenous beast now, an addict, requiring us, its pawns, to consume ever more and more, but is this what we really want to do?

I've become a fanatic at recycling and composting lately. I cannot bear to waste one scrap of uneaten food or discard anything reusable. The kind of national leadership I would like to see would talk honestly to us citizens about our moral responsibility to reduce consumption, not expand it.

Even though I am unemployed, personally, and running straight into a rough patch from a cash-flow perspective, I don't want my government to print more money, send it to us, and bank on us spending it on more needless gadgets made of unnatural toxic plastics plus scarce natural resources.

Nevertheless, I will accept this dinky check and do what is right. I won't buy anything. I hope you'll consider doing the same.

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