People love free money. There are a lot of people who would love to win the lottery, and I think many people also consider lottery tickets a retirement plan. (That doesn’t make it a good plan…. )

The idea that some people have “too much” money is a simple way to pander for votes if you promise to take it from the rich and spread it around. However, at the same time our goal should be to keep unemployment down, and companies with more than 20 employees are hit hard by increased taxes, and are less likely to hire new employees (they may even lay off employees if taxes go up).

If you remember, there were reasons to suspect the economy was taking a downturn over the past couple years. Many reporters forget the past, they act as if things were just fine until the shit hit the fan just over a month ago. While many are affected by the downturn in the stock market or loans and foreclosures, most people don’t have their 401K at risk, and most people don’t have their home on the auction block. And, with gas prices down below $2.50 here, this means we are all getting a de facto “stimulus rebate” every month as we fill our gas tanks and as the goods we buy are transported more cheaply across the country.

This isn’t to say things are great, they aren’t and unemployment is rising as are prices across the board, but things haven’t gone to hell quite yet. Still, Congress is going to propose another “stimulus package” like we had earlier this year. This is the rebate check mailed out to most families, but in reality, very few single professionals got much if any rebate at all. This was simply a bribe, taking some taxpayer money, and redistributing it in the form of a trifling check to mostly families and the poor. (Makes me want to go against my best judgement and get married and have a bunch of kids…)

A stimulus check is nothing more than a way to briefly distract people, when a few hundred dollars isn’t in any way enough to keep up with the bills and credit card payments. Nevertheless, this “gift” from your Congressman comes with the instructions to “go forth and buy crap”, as if that will do anything to solve the problem which was caused by overspending in the first place. What we need is a pro-growth tax policy, not a stimulus package or a regressive change to the tax code.
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