President Bush just signed the surprisingly bipartisan stimulus package into effect today. I'll give the government an A for effort, and an A+ for actually doing something expeditiously for once, but I can only muster a D- for the actual package itself.
While I certainly won't send back the $600 check that's coming my way, I also don't plan on spending it the way so many other Americans will. What do you think that money will be spent on? Something like a new LCD TV that is made in Japan from Chinese parts. That is not exactly stimulating the overall economy here in the US. With the influx of foreign capital, especially into the battered banking system, Americans should do something really patriotic and either put that money in a high-yield savings account, invest it in a retirement account, or pay off the over $8,000 (on average) they have in credit card debt. In fact, the $150 billion dollar stimulus package would probably be better spent in reducing the national debt than giving it to consumers. Taking it a step further, for maximal benefit, the government would give all of the money to primarily small businesses as a means of encouraging expansion and capital expenditures, instead of just providing for equipment purchases. Such purchases do not really help businesses in the service sector that saw some awful numbers a few days ago.
Also, the checks won't even arrive until some time in May, meaning that the economy will already be in a recession, if that is indeed the future of our economy...something I'm not entirely conviced on yet.
The fact is, the stimulus package is only about 1% of GDP. That is a drop in the bucket. More than anything, this seems to be a political move in a year when a Presidential election and a slowing economy happen to be occurring.
No comments:
Post a Comment