Eric the Red

I got my $600 tax rebate check last week, but I didn’t bother running out to spend it simply because the $600 would benefit maybe the Chinese, Taiwanese or some other foreign economy.

Really, the whole concept of a $600 rebate is stupid. We give people money, tell them to spend it, and then hope that the economy recovers because of consumption. But an economy cannot survive because of consumption; only with production and self-sufficiency. Unfortunately, we don’t have much of that here.

A better economic stimulus maneuver would be to make those $600 rebates available in the form of a low interest business loan program to encourage expansion in manufacturing (look at the foreign exchange rates), while transferring the gas tax to the oil companies from the pumps. This transfer would encourage the oil companies to lower prices (lower per gallon means lower profit margin and less tax) while freeing up some extra monthly cash for consumers.