Democracy for Vancouver

But even I can see gargantuan holes in this plan:

With the economy’s prospects growing bleaker seemingly by the day, politicians in both parties have rallied around the three Ts, the mantra that any stimulus package needs to be timely, targeted and temporary.

One might add the three Bs as well — the ability to deliver the biggest bang for the buck. In that regard, tax rebates have quickly risen to the top of a list that also includes extended unemployment benefits and a boost in food stamp payments.

All three proposals have one very big advantage for politicians worried about what the economy will look like when voters go to the polls in November. They offer the promise of getting assistance out quickly to low and moderate income people who won’t delay in spending the extra cash.

That is considered crucial given the precarious state of the economy at the moment. The great fear is that consumers, who have been the standout performer during the current expansion, could now be faltering under the successive blows of a steep slump in housing, spiraling energy costs, a spreading credit squeeze, rising unemployment and falling stock prices.

First, if this is a tax rebate (like the $300/$600 marvel we had after 9/11), it’s an advance on your tax refund. I don’t know about you, but when we did our taxes after that rebate, we ended up owing exactly $600. So much for mad money.

Second, while consumer spending does tend to have a multiplier effect, with dollars turning over several times within the community, the problem is that eventually too many of those dollars are going overseas to pay for oil or for consumer crap from China. Unless we find a way to keep those dollars here, buying goods and services produced in the U.S. by U.S. workers, we’re just choosing a slow suicide over a fast one. Any economic plan that doesn’t create incentives for keeping jobs onshore and penalties for sending jobs and profits offshore is short-term happy horseshit.

And, of course, something must be done at the homeowner end of things to stabilize mortgage rates and fend off a tsunami of foreclosures that would drive the housing market into even deeper circles of hell.

Finally, the decomposing elephant in the room that no one is talking about is the federal debt. If we do not end the occupation of Iraq, which continues to cost us $2 billion a week, not only will all our banks belong to the emirates, but our federal government will, too. We may be too big to fail in the sense that our creditors will make sure that the U.S. does not default on its debt, but we are already becoming, in Rachel Maddow’s inimitable phrase, “Birkina Faso with cable.”

You know the old proverb, “For want of a shoe, the horse was lost; for want of a horse, the battle was lost…” Well, for want of infrastructure, education and health care, the jobs were lost; for want of the jobs, the middle class was lost; and for want of the middle class, the first-world economy was lost.

Government spending underpins our economy not just in the Franklin Roosevelt-get-people-to-work way, but more importantly in the we-have-roads-and-ports-and-bridges-and-a-healthy-and-educated-workforce way. BushCo and the Reaganauts would like you to believe the economy is all in the consumer’s hands - that encourages you to buy that flatscreen instead of fattening your IRA, and more importantly lulls you into acquiescence when tax cuts for the wealthy are on the table. Trickle-down, baby!

You want to stimulate the economy? Revoke the Bush tax cuts on the top 2%. Invest part of the trillion dollars needed to repair and upgrade our infrastructure over the next 5 years. Launch a program of grants and tax incentives for development of green technologies and renewable energy to stop the flow of dollars out of the country to the Saudi royal family. Get universal healthcare up and running to immediately increase worker productivity.

In other words, elect Democrats. We may have to wait a year to swear them in, but next year at least we’ll have a chance to make real improvements to our economic stability.

Until then, that tax rebate is just lipstick on a pig.