My Stimulus Package

My (highly satirical) version of what the stimulus package should be…

So…the federal gov’t is about to pony up $900 billion of taxpayers money. To quote Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, ‘the horror, the horror.’ But since the Federal gov’t is about to increase the federal debt by another $15,000 per taxpayer ($900,000,000,000/60,000,000 taxpayers = $15,000 taxpayer), I’d like to talk about how I want my $15,000 of pillaging to be spent….mine and all the other Americans.

If I had a say in how this money was spent, this is how I would do it:

Assuming $500/handgun and 170,000,000 Americans over the age of 18, I’d like the gov’t to spend $85 billion to buy every American adult a self defense weapon. With the potential of every American packing, crime will go down to almost zero resulting in hundreds of billions in lower insurance premiums, claims, and much of a less need for federal and state law enforcement.

I’d like the government to spend another $85 billion to get every American a year membership to the gym. A more fit America will decrease avoidable diseases by amazing amounts and see hundreds of billions less in health benefits claims. Lower insurance premiums will also follow.
I’d like to $20 billion blow up every house that currently is abandoned with plywood over the windows. That’s right – less squatter homes will result in large increase in property values elsewhere, increasing the taxbase and increasing revenue 5-fold or more.

On the subject of nationalization, I’d like to see more gov’t intervention on the following:

- I’d like to see the gov’t nationalize the amount of TV that Americans can watch per day. I’d like to see $10 Billion spent developing a system where if your TV is left on for more than 1 hour/day, that it immediately shuts off and can only be reset every 12-16 hours.
Regulating/nationalizing TV watching will result in more family quality time and force dads to be more emotionally involved in the lives of their kids. The money saved in court costs (less custody battles, divorces, etc) will fund the TV Czar and his department.

- I’d like to see the gov’t nationalize what Americans can eat. A diet of only vegetables and water. They need to nationalize and regulate what food can and can’t be sold in stores. Only organic products with no processed sugar or sodium added. The money saved by fewer cases of heart disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, and cancer will be used to fund a food czar and ensuing gov’t division.

- I’d like to see the gov’t regulate all new construction projects. All new skyscrapers will be have solar panels covering at least 50% of the exterior with the panels being able to provide at least 300% of the total energy needs for the building. The other 200% of the energy will be sold to repay the money spent to create a building czar and ensuing gov’t multi-tiered bureaucracy.

- I’d like to see….none of this. But these projects are at least a little bit better than $150 million for contraceptives, $85 Billion for big pharma, $866,000 for a discgolf course (seriously….I love discgolf…but as part of a stimulus package using federal money?), $275 billion in tax cuts….good grief.