As joblessness mounts and the economy continues its downward slide, the pundits have already begun to question whether President-elect Obama’s $800 billion economic stimulus package has game.
The plan, which calls for tax cuts for consumers and small businesses in addition to more money for schools and highways, funding for “green” energy projects and more cash for health care and education, has been criticized by Obama’s fellow Democrats who want to throw more government dollars at the problem. Republicans, for their part, want bigger and broader tax cuts.
The reality, of course, is that nobody knows what to do to turn the economy around. From the Federal Reserve on down, we’re all basically winging it.
“We have very few good examples to guide us,” William G. Gale, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told The New York Times last week. “I don’t know of any convincing evidence that what has been proposed is going to be enough.”
Now I’m not saying I’ve got the answer, either. But whatever the long-term solution turns out to be, I think it would be a big morale-booster for the country if Obama could put some points on the board early in the game.
Here are three easy wins our new president could score in his first 100 days in office:
1. Auction the naming rights to our national treasures–Stadiums do it, so why not Uncle Sam? Think about the billions of dollars the government could rake in by selling the naming rights to the Washington Monument, the Liberty Bell, Mount Rushmore and other major national treasures. And what if the corporate sponsor gets nailed for cooking the books or backdating options? Not a problem. The government would simply cancel the contract and put it out for bid again. No refunds allowed!
2. Outsource the Securities and Exchange Commission–The Bernie Madoff scandal revealed what many in the financial community have known for years: When you’re a member of the old boys’ club, regulators often look the other way. Rather than sit back and wait for another embarrassing financial scandal to tarnish the government’s reputation, let’s outsource the SEC to the guys who brought us derivatives, hedge funds and collateralized debt obligations in the first place. Wall Street firms would pay big money for the security of knowing they’ll no longer have to worry about getting indicted, and everybody can go back to making multimillion-dollar bonuses and splurging on paintings, yachts and houses in the Hamptons.
3. Tax Lotto–You can’t expect people to run to the post office to send their hard-earned money to the IRS when they can barely afford to pay their mortgages and credit card bills. That’s why I think the government should give taxpayers a little incentive. Tax Lotto, a federally sponsored lottery, would give taxpayers the chance to win millions of dollars–but only if they paid in full and filed their returns by April 15. The slogan: You’ve got to pay to play.
All kidding aside, I think we need to throw away yesterday’s playbook and do some out-of- the-box thinking if we’re going to turn the economy around. If beaten-down cities such as Pittsburgh can transform themselves from industrial ghost towns to thriving hubs of health care and technology, then surely we as a country can carve a niche for ourselves in the 21st century’s post-industrial economy.
While the federal government can pump trillions of dollars into the banking system and create millions of make-work jobs, our economy won’t bounce back until consumers and businesses once again believe that the future of our country is worth investing in.
Until next time.
Rosalind
P.S. - My new book, Beating the Bailout Blues: How to Stay Sane When the Market Is Driving You Crazy, is now available on Amazon. Click here to order your copy.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 13th, 2009 at 4:12 pm and is filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.Leave a Reply
