I started this thought in a previous blog post.  It's finally time to say what else I intended to say.

You may recall, I pointed out that in the Q&A about the Economic Stimulus Payments handed out last year, there was an assumption.  The assumption was: The only way to stimulate the economy is to print more money.

We're still running under the same assumption with the just-passed-and-waiting-for-the-president-to-sign-it Economic Stimulus Bill (or as others prefer to call it: Deficit Protection Act.)  The big difference is that the one from last year was "only" $150+ Billion whereas this new one is more than 5 times bigger.

Oh boy!  They're printing 5 times more money!

But that just means that we've got 5 times as much more deficit than the last $150B created... all while not stimulating the economy.

The "Change We Can Believe In" seems to be to follow the advice: If you're in debt over your head, just dig the hole faster and eventually you'll be out.

As any intelligent person knows - the only way to get out of debt is to stop digging that hole.

In this case that means, stop printing more money, stop spending so much money, and find a way to get money to flow into the country.

Now there is an awful lot of money that was here in America, but is no longer.  Whose money is it?  And why did it go elsewhere?

It's money invested in businesses.  And it went overseas to avoid our punitive tax system.

How much is there?  I've seen several figures.  So, rather than quoting just one, I'll say every figure is well above $10 Trillion.

Would you like to see that with all the zeros?  Here it is: $10,000,000,000,000.00+

You realize, don't you, that that represents more than 10 times as much money as the government is about to print.

What if we could change things so that that money came streaming back into the USA?  What if there was a plan to eliminate the punitive taxation on all these companies?  Do you think that might entice them to bring their money, and jobs, back here?

Do you think that might really stimulate the economy?

You bet it would.

And there is just such a plan.

It's been introduced to the House every year for quite some time.  And it's getting more and more traction every year.  But the majority of the politicians - especially the entrenched power-mongers - are loathe to seriously consider it, much less enact it.  The reason?  It would strip them of a very significant amount of their power and control... and allow us to move back toward the free market economy we were set up to be.

It wouldn't cost us anywhere near $1T, and it would bring in a whole lotta money - some in the short term, more in the long term.  It would free up existing businesses here to refocus their effort on business issues rather than tax-compliance issues.  And it would help out individual citizens, and the environment as well...

It would make April 15th "just another (hopefully beautiful) Spring day."

It would encourage recycling/reusing goods.

It would encourage saving.  (If people had SAVINGS to tap into, what would that do for home sales?)

It would allow everyone to see their FULL paycheck.

It would remove all tax-burden from those in poverty - and progressively increase taxes the more one spends on new goods and services.

And it would include EVERYONE who spends any money here in the USA on new goods and services in the tax roles, without any invasion of financial privacy.  (It's really no one else's business how much anyone makes.  And we should never have allowed the government to voyeuristically spy on our finances like it does.)

Now that's Change I Can Believe In!