I have to admit, I really don’t know much about proposed economic stimulus plans. I’ve been trying to catch up, so I went directly to the source (and by that, I mean barackobama.com) to see what the deal was. Well, apparently the Prez and Veep are going to directly inject (oh I hope it won’t hurt) $75 billion into the economy in the form of tax cuts and direct spending. The article I read wasn’t exactly specific, and since I’m not really in the mood, I didn’t dig any further. Now, this is not my blog that tries to subtly say, “I hate the president.” I don’t. I’m reserving judgment, since, well, nothing has really happened yet (and this isn’t one of those questionably subtle digs). What I don’t understand is how $75 billion in tax cuts for working families and seniors is going to boost our economy. I understand living paycheck to paycheck and I understand that a lot of families are not able to do so because of unemployment, rising medical costs, tuition payments, etc. But how does a $250 tax cut make that possible? This isn’t really money back into the pocket of the working family, it’s money they didn’t have in the first place, and money they still won’t have even after the cut. We are in debt. We are losing our jobs, our houses. We’re struggling to put dinner on the table.

Okay, so a tax cut means that an individual, or family, will owe less money to the government. Okay, that sounds good. Well, most of us have money removed from our paychecks each pay period to account for those taxes. So, this means less money is taken from the paycheck and more goes home with us. Pretty simplistic, I know, bear with me, I’ve never taken economics, though now I know I should. Okay, so I’m assuming the $250 tax cut is just a one shot deal, meaning that over the course of a year, whatever we might owe the government in income taxes is now reduced by $250. I get paid weekly, which turns out to be $4.80 less each week that I would owe the government, or $20.83 a month. I can buy a tank of gas for that much, will that be enough to stimulate our economy? Wikipedia tells me that the idea behind a tax cut is to have taxpayers spend money on commodities sourced from within the country. Is one more tank of gas enough to do it? In all likelihood, I don’t need that extra tank of gas anyway. But let’s go back to the working families and individuals who are going into debt because they can’t pay their bills between paychecks. Is that $21 a month enough to help them make ends meet?

I really hope that I’m missing something. I don’t pretend to be an expert. I have no idea how to fix our economy. But what I do know is that when our economy wasn’t quite the downer it is now, credit was extended to those that had no business taking it, mostly in the form of home loans. These people, however hard working they might have been, didn’t have the capital to support the purchase. They couldn’t make the payments and the banks suffered. Our “American Dream” backfired. We are driven by so much consumerism that it blinds us. Where is it written that we need to own a home? I’m obviously failing at life because besides not being able to afford one, I don’t want to have my own house right now. Nothing to do with the market, but there is a lot of responsibility that goes in to owning a house, and that means a lot of money. Roofs leak and get blown off in hurricanes, pipes explode, termites invade, foundations crumble, whatever, the point is, you’re liable for it. I know I can’t handle that right now, so I stay away.

Why do we go out of our way to spend money that we don’t have?