A Bailout Plan I Can Support

Congressman Louie Gohmert (R-TX) has a new bailout plan for the economy that I can really support. After seeing that Congress and the Bush administration were committing nearly $7.7 trillion in bailout money to failing companies, and comparing that to the $1.2 trillion that the U.S. Treasury is estimating to receive in the 2008 tax year, Congressman Gohmert proposed a new, less expensive program: NO 2008 TAXES and a refund of any taxes withheld to date. Just imagine what that influx of funds back to all of us regular folk would do for the holiday shopping season, not to mention the ability to help those who have fallen behind in their mortgages.

Realizing that this proposal might be a little too aggressive, Congressman Gohmert came up with another proposal, a two month tax holiday for January and February of 2009. His new proposal calls for no federal income tax or social security taxes to be withheld for the first two months of next year. American Solutions estimates that Americans pay about $167 billion per month in income tax and FICA tax, so the cost of the tax holiday would be $334 billion. Gohmert proposes using the remaining $350 billion that remains in Treasury Secretary Henry Paulsen's original $700 billion bailout.

The first $350 billion has done nothing to help the economy. In fact, a lot of the money has not been used for it's original purpose. Some banks have used the influx in capital not to shore up the credit markets, but to aquire other, smaller competition. Then there is all of the other news about how some of these struggling enterprises are spending their money. If you really want to stimulate the economy, let the people who have earned the money decide where it should go.

If you think this is a better use of the money that has already been committed, then I encourage you to write your Congressman in support of Congressman Gohmert's tax holiday proposal. Of course the Democrats probably won't support such a proposal, because in their twisted mind it gives a bigger tax break to the evil rich, even though everyone gets a 100% tax cut for two months. I would prefer to see the FairTax implemented to replace the current tax structure, but any opportunity to get money back into our hands is better than what we have.