To The Blogosphere:

Last October, I spent quite a bit of time trying my darnest to contact my representatives in government. I also tried to disseminate information through my preferred news organization, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. I had no luck, not a whisper of a contact in return, even when I called my representatives’ offices and The Daily Show’s news desk directly. So now I figure, what the heck, I’ll just publish them here, on Hubpages, and see whether I can attract my own audience.

Now, the first issue I will address on Hubpages is the way to structure the economic stimulus plan. I’ve seen a resolution published by Michael Moore on the subject, but even he didn’t promote the plan when he was on Larry King Live. I never thought I’d see the day, but Michael, grow a pair. Rachel Maddow has bigger balls than you these days. I hope you win something, anything, at the Academy Awards, so you can stand up in front of the world and shout, “I . . . WAS . . . RIGHT ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ” and then get back to doing what you do best—being the Socrates/gadfly for our age.

Honestly, I don’t see a plan coming out of the Senate that I would vote for myself. By now, it should be obvious that congressional hand-outs to corporations are useless. Since corporations obtained personhood, their behavior has been absolutely impossible and incorrigible. If I had access to my representatives and could write my own plan, the basic outline would be something like this. (The verbiage would probably have to change a bit).

Rescue the housing industry.

Was that the first in the stack of cards to give way? Okay, then we start with that. When Congress props up the industry itself, and doesn’t address the root of the problem, which is that people can’t afford to pay for their houses anymore, and NOTHING CHANGES for the individual facing foreclosure. All it means for most people is that the banks survive while the middle class is forced to suck it. If the middle class goes down, everything goes down. So what do we do to provide economic stimulus to the housing industry? Getting the government to buy the bad debt is a bad idea. It doesn’t do anything to address the root of the problem. And Nancy, really, we don’t care about return on investment. We can look around and see where that business philosophy has gotten us. Instead, the government needs to take immediate action at the level of the individual, which is the level at which the entire edifice has been shaken. Here is how you fix it. Provide immediate housing funds to every American household. To qualify for funds, the household must be living in the same home in which they lived in 2008. If the taxpayer owns more than one home, the funds can be applied only to the property listed as the primary residence on their 2007 tax return. This will ensure that funds are used to rescue only to established family homes. Senator McCain doesn’t get money for all of his other how-ever-many-it-was houses across the nation—just the primary one. Each household gets the same amount of money—say, $3,000 or $5,000 or whatever. If a mortgage account is delinquent, the payments are brought current first. After that, the homeowner can choose whether he/she wants to apply the funds to the next two or three monthly payments, or to use the funds to refinance the mortgage with a lower principal. If the taxpayer rents the primary home, the funds will be applied to the next two or three months’ rent. If the taxpayer owns his or her home outright, the funds are put into an IRA.

Stimulate the auto industry.

I think a lot of the wah-wah we hear from the auto industry stems from the fact that they have automated their assembly lines to the point at which retooling the factory would be cost-prohibitive for anything other than the models they manufacture now. Okay, first of all, go back to the way Henry Ford set up his lines, with American people on them, and start making automobiles with the kind of flexibility that only human beings can give you. Agree to union wages and lock them in for five years or ten years or whatever, and hire lots and lots of people to build cars. I’m sure the question remains, How to pay for it? This is the sweet part. Each household gets a debit card for $6,000 off the price of a hybrid or alternative fuel car. Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer can take that debit card to the dealership and use it for the down payment on a new energy-efficient car. The funds are applied immediately to the automaker, which will give them plenty of start-up capital to retool their factories. Also, the U.S. government should sponsor a contest among American automakers to come up with the cheapest energy-efficient car, something that could be sold for $6,000 or so. The prize? How about a corporate jet? What if the household has no use for a new energy-efficient car? If they have not used the funds by the expiration date, the funds go into an IRA.

Shore up the credit industry.

I think the banks are a bunch of whiners too. My husband visited a local branch of AIG lately, and found the branch closed for remodeling. That, in addition to the reports of corporate jets, golden parachutes, and excessive pheasant hunting, is enough to convince me that giving more money to the credit industry will be about as efficacious as pounding sand down a rathole. Also, what is the point of bailing out the banks, when the end result for the middle-class individual will be the same? All that happens is that the banks survive to suck more money out of us, and we pay and pay and pay endlessly. Fortunately for the credit industry, enacting the first two parts of the plan will necessarily have a huge impact on the credit industry as well. Housing funds will be funneled through the banks, and to the banks, as will the funds for the energy-efficient vehicles. These things alone should have the credit industry smiling. However, what if the government offered $5,000 per household or so to apply to consumer debt? Again, in the form of a restricted use debit card, so that funds are applied properly. If the household doesn’t have any consumer debt, the funds automatically go into an IRA.

Restricted-use debit cards are ubiquitous now, and I don’t think the banks would have any problems setting these plans into action. Sure, there will be wide-spread confusion and opportunity for corruption. But if a time limit is set for claiming the funds, after which they go into an IRA, there should be little opportunity for corruption. If restricted-use debit cards are used, funds will not be misapplied. As far as dealing with the confusion . . . if letters, websites, and commercials don’t work, the government could certainly afford to hire enough people, even temporarily, to shepherd the public through the process. It would definitely be more helpful than throwing money at the problem.

How do we pay for it? We tax the hell out of anyone who has more money than they could spend in a thousand thousand lifetimes (corporate bigwigs, heiresses, entertainers, athletes, etc.). Running up the score like that should be illegal, especially when it’s money.

The second part? Huge taxes for corporations who outsource jobs overseas, significantly more than they would pay in salaries for Americans. The rationale is that when businesses employ Americans, the government is paid income tax from those Americans. Overseas workers are a drain on the American economy, in that the government isn’t paid the income tax for those salaries, local businesses miss out on a huge revenue stream from people with money to spend, and the local governments lose revenue from sales taxes. It’s a huge problem for everybody. If the government required corporations to pay an “outsourcing” tax equivalent to payroll deductions for income tax and health care for an American worker in the same position, you can bet that the multinationals would yank their jobs back to American soil. Which would create a lot of jobs, and a lot of money for the government and the entire society. And don’t tell me that the American worker is priced out of the global marketplace. I have two words for you: Wal. Mart.