My plan to attack the deficit and fix our economyFollow

Ok, we all know the world's economy is going in the ******* and the US' response is to exponentialize what has been precisely the problem to date. President O'fairy tales wants us to take the excessive spending of previous adminstrations and put a little number 2 or 3 to the upper right of that dollar figure and magically spend our way back into prosperity. Flippin' genius that Obama fellow.

So allow me to submit before the board my own economic stimulus plan. It's simple, based on reality, and fortunately for all of us, sustainable.

I'll call it my "toilet paper" tax idea. Let's use a common item found in most grocery and supermarkets as an arbitrary guide-- your illustrious 12 count Scott brand mega roll (12 mega rolls equal 32 of the single ply accidentally-poke-your-finger-through-and-touch-your-own-**** type stuff.) You can pick this up anywhere for $14.99.

I can still handle the simple math despite living in Africa, so that comes out to around $1.25 per. Now I know you can cut that price in half at Cosco and other places, but we have to start somewhere, and my plan works no matter what the cost or where you purchase the tee-pee.

OK, now we add a 5 cent per roll tax... and voila, do the math, based on how many rolls per day YOU think this country goes through. Get back to me with, say, a monthly total. Just the a$$wipes on this board like trickybeck and bhodi would put a decent dent in the deficit.

Pretty smart, neh?
/nods

Totem

And-- AND --it give posters like tricky a raison d'etre. Two birds with one stone! It's a win-win for everybody!

Totem

What a shit idea!

If it's such a bad idea, Totem, why is CA taking so much of the $?

Umm, because Cali is a Dem state run by a Dem Congress, and governed by a Dem Republican pretending to be a populist. Yeah, you could easily substitute the letter "a" for those letter "e's" in the word Dem for what each and every one of them are worth. Useless.

Seriously, Bush was prescient when he gave away a mere $162 billion back in the day. Now that wouldn't hardly begin to cause any of us to bat an eye. Buy gold now, children, because your dollars are going to be less valuable than Scott's two-ply before all this is over.

Totem

Yeah, good luck with that toilet paper tax Totem; the I.B.S. lobby will nip that in the bud.

Europe style health care is vastly cheaper per person. The US government pays almost the same per person as other governments do (per person) only to cover a tiny fraction of the population. Since no other major industrialized nation has health care similar to the US, I'm simply unsure if there is any realistic way to tweak our own system to make it more efficient. Whereas the proven methods are vastly (2-3 times) cheaper.

That alone would do the trick: collect money via income taxes which currently goes now to pay for health care. Side effect of shifting the tax burden back onto the more well off where it belongs (which has no correlation to slowing the economy - check it out historically correlation coefficient is 0.07) - and that means more money in most people's pockets. Along with removing the vast majority of the HR burden currently on companies, along with company payments to health care directly it is effectively a massive cost cut for businesses. Further, it makes it vastly easier to work for and start up small businesses since you can hire *anyone* and they will be covered via health insurance. Currently if you want to freelance or work for a startup, it is likely you are either: young and in flawless health or have a spouse with a job which provides coverage. This considerable narrows the pool.

Lastly, it is a massive boost to the US auto industry (among others) who have agreed to cover retiree health care. This is at the heart why US automakers cannot compete with foreign companies: they actually pay for health costs 2-3 times higher.

Historically, the majority of the US population would not accept this. I think now they might.

I'd love to hear alternatives.

I like California's plans to legalize marijuana and tax that, and my own state's consideration of repealing the archaic blue laws that prevent me from grabbing high gravity beers on Sunday.