The world’s hottest economist, Michelle Muccio, has created a bit of a stir with her simple commonsense stimulus plan, a one-year payroll tax holiday.
Here she is discussing the plan with Bill Schieffer of CBS News.
I like it, a payroll tax holiday would put more money in people’s pockets immediately… Money they can spend on goods and services or invest now. That will have a much more direct impact on the economy than the pork laden stimulus law recently passed by Congress. Much of the spending in that bill doesn’t actually enter the economy until 2010, 2011 or 2012.
Personally, I go step farther and cut the corporate income tax rate from the current 35 percent rate to 20 percent and suspend the capital gains tax for one or two years. Both of which will help encourage investment and help get the economy moving again.
I don’t know what her qualifications are, but besides being a pretty face, she seems very immature and doesn’t seem to know much about the budget or the budgeting process.
All that said, I like the idea. It’s ironic that it was the Greenspan Commission that suggested raising the payroll tax rate back in the 80s to shore up Social Security (and it worked, for a while).
There is obviously a lot of waste in the budget. However, we elect the folks who devise the budget. We need to send them a lesson: You spend one dollar unwisely and I take it out of your arse!
But that will never happen because we all want the free lunch. My congressman (or woman) goes to DC to bring back money to his district. I – somehow – reap the benefits. It’s shared wealth. Some call it socialism, but I think that’s off-base. I think it’s government run amok. At least with socialism, you kinda know what you’re getting.
With our perverse capitalism, we never know what’s in store. I’m all for the Milton Friedman version of capitalism (read “Free to Choose”) but that will never come about either.
The ONLY way out of this economic mess is economic growth. America needs to learn how to create again. Build stuff. Manufacture things. Better, cheaper, faster. We CAN do it. But it’s gonna take years and LOTS of effort. Not sure the American public has it in us anymore.