We have all heard people griping about stimulas this and stimulate that, but most of us have yet to see much of an impact. I tried to use the stimulas package to upgrade my AC unit; but couldn't without upgrading my newer furnace that didn't need to be replaced anytime soon. I had a contractor come look at my windows and prepare a bid, but the windows just barely were below the cut off for the stimulous package and the next two would still be thousands more even after the refund!
I started thinking about what could really be done to stimulate the economy and create jobs to sustain growth without bankrupting this country further. Here are my ideas:
1) Offer early retirement benefits via social security type programs to allow existing jobs to be vacated making room for new people. Getting some people off the payroll with extensive benefits and wages higher than market due to increased competition would help offset the cost of the new people coming on board. This would be voluntary.
2) Take people that are on unemployment and offer them 10-15% more benefits if they would make themselves useful in our community instead of laying on the couch drinking beer, eating cheetos while watching Judge Judy or Oprah all day. They could recycle trash at the dump, paint over graffeti, pull weeds in the park, volunteer at the homeless shelters, donate blood to the Red Cross, be a crossing guard at a school, etc. We would probably save 25% of their medical bill costs that we are paying for since they are getting getting excercise for a change and their electric bill would drop since they are out doing something.
3) Since many people are being released early from prisons around the country, why not make it an economic discharge system where if they are not a major risk to society, they can "earn" their way out? If the cost to house them is $25,000 a year (way too low usually), they can get a year off early for every $25K they earn by doing stuff while incarcerated. They could learn life skills and get a real job upon release to try to decrease the number of repeat prisoners.
4) Fund some of the businesses that are inspired by our Universities and Colleges around the country via tax incentives to implement the ideas.
5) Allow Americans to generate credits for higher education based on civic contributions and charitable work done for certain organizations (i.e. Habitat For Humanity, Red Cross, Peace Corp., etc.)
6) Recreate the civilian conservation corps that Roosevelt used.
7) Train our national guard and military via domestic projects before we ship them overseas to get on the job training fixing another countries infrasture instead of our own.
8) Pay out stimulous money to people that stimulate government "savings" instead of spending.
9) Provide incentives for self employed people like Realtors instead of of making it nearly impossible to get benefits because your self employed (i.e. health insurance).
10) Figure out ways to get people off public programs by incentivizing them out. For example, use the Neighborhood Stabilization Funds target people on Section 8 housing to fend for themselves for the long term! I am doing one of these right now and it is great!
Higher people smarter than me to implement ideas like these and encourage more ideas!
Comments (3)Subscribe to CommentsComment