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The simplest way to "stimulate the economy" would be to simply declare a federal tax holiday: That no federal income, FICA, or medicare taxes will be collected for a fixed period of time. This would be an immediate boon to the economy, since it would be felt immediately, or at least at the end of the next pay period. There would be no additional cost to the government, as there was with the last "stimulus" package, where we had the cost of printing and mailing the checks, as well as the poorly thought-out printing and mailing out of notices.

Even if it's only the FICA and medicare taxes that are put on holiday, that would be an immediate take home pay "increase" of nearly 8%, and it will reduce the cost of employment for every employee by 8% as well. For an employer, this could be the difference between having to let someone go versus being able to keep them on.

Mark

The worst thing you could do, other than mailing out checks or dumping money from helicopters.

A TEMPORARY tax holiday does nothing to change anybody’s incentives. Nobody is going to invest in a real business if the tax burden is going to come back in two months or even two years.

The Bush tax cuts were excellent supply-side tax cuts—but the very fact that they were temporary guaranteed that, as the deadline approached, there would be uncertainty, instability, and recession. As the deadline approached, the Democrats started howling for EARLY repeal of the tax cuts. That only makes the tax cuts less effective.

Sure—as long as the tax cuts are still in effect, we get to keep more of our money. But the closer the expiration date gets, the slower investment gets.

The income tax is an unmitigated CURSE. The Sixteenth Amendment is a crime against the American people. The Communists who put it in place should have been tarred, feathered, and burned at the stake.

The American people, who don’t rise up against it, are being punished for their own greed and envy—because greed and envy are the vices that the income tax appeals to.