Conservatively Speaking
State Senator Mary Lazich (R-New Berlin) represents parts of four counties: Milwaukee, Waukesha, Racine, and Walworth. Her Senate District 28 includes New Berlin, Franklin, Greendale, Hales Corners, Muskego, Waterford, Big Bend, the town of Vernon and parts of Greenfield, East Troy, and Mukwonago. Senator Lazich has been in the Legislature for more than a decade. She considers herself a tireless crusader for lower taxes, reduced spending and smaller government.
The wrong people are spending the stimulus
Talk show host columnist, and author Neal Boortz has some intriguing thoughts about how the stimulus should have been handled. Writing in his latest piece, Boortz agrees with the general concept:
“Clearly, to stimulate our economy money had to be spent.”
Boortz then raises a critical question:
“Who gets to spend the money?”
Recalling that a Texas Congressman suggested a one-month federal income and payroll tax holiday for Americans, Boortz took that idea and proposed extending the holiday to six months.
“Do you remember how much that stimulus bills was? Let’s just call it $750 billion. For the sake of argument let’s accept that this $750 billion had to be borrowed and spent to get our economy cranking again. It seems that $750 billion is almost exactly equal to the amount of federal income, Social Security and Medicare taxes withheld from American paychecks over a six-month period.”
The problem, and Boortz nails it, is that the wrong people were put in charge of spending stimulus money.
“Here are the two possible scenarios our politicians had to work with:
1. Borrow the $750 billion and let the politicians (the looters) decide how it is going to be spent to stimulate our economy.
2. Give the producers a six month period in which they owe no federal income or payroll taxes. For these six months they get to keep their checks. This puts $750 billion into the hands of American workers – American producers – to spend and invest.
Under the tax holiday plan the people, not the politicians, get to cast the ballots/dollars. Spending choices would not be made on the basis of political expediency, but on the free choices of the people. Businesses that delivered a good product and good customer service would get the votes, not politicians who delivered a pork project to their districts.
A dollar spent on a new lawnmower at the hardware store does not generate a single vote. A dollar spent on a new job mowing grass along an Interstate highway does. “
Boortz contends that because the government is making all the stimulus expenditures, we have little to show for all that spending.
You can read Boortz’s column here.
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