An alternative Stimulus Plan

(This was originally posted on Facebook on January 29, 2009)

I just had a rather enlightening experience in my social problems class. It presented an idea to me that I had never previously considered. We watched a movie called "Demographic Winter" which presents an idea that will probably seem foreign to most people. It asserts that most of the problem we are seeing today are a result of a decreased fertility rate. In order to maintain a replacement population female has to have 2.1 children ( a little Jacob 2 for the lds crowd ). Currently the U.S. is averaging 1.9 children per female and this is in steady decline. One of the professors in the film- I wish I had his name, but he won a Noble Peace prize in economics- stated that the average spending age is 48-50. It is during this age period that people, on average, spend the most money. He took a population chart from the year 1900 and set it 48 years back from an economic growth graph that followed the same period. Guess what year the largest population (baby boomers) reached the highest spending age? About 2002-2008. Guess what year the population between these high spending ages dropped? 2010. This professor predicted years ago that we would have an economic downfall in 2010. So he was a year off? It was almost pefect.Another high ranking sociologist, Professor Poponoe, stated that the best economic situation is a typical nuclear family- a mother, a father, and children. Isn't that interesting. The best economic situation would be a society entirely composed of "the golden family." Hmmm. So would passing a constitutional amendment to not allow homosexual marriage and adoption help the economy? Yes! Would anti-abortion laws and programs that encouraged adoption in to good families help the economy? Yes! And we're spending $37 million on a boat that can break ice in Antartica! Boy howdy will that stimulate the economy.I would now like to take a look at the Obama solution to the economy. The following ideas are from a good friend- well I'd like him to be- Glenn Beck.

•President-elect Obama has said that his proposed stimulus legislation will create or save 3 million jobs. This means that this legislation will spend about $275,000 per job. The average household income in the U.S. is $42,000 a year.

• This bill provides enough spending to give every man, woman, and child in America $2,700.

• This bill will cost each and every household $6,700 in additional debt, paid for by our children and grandchildren.

• Although this legislation has been billed and described as a transportation and infrastructure investment package, but only three percent ($30 billion) of this package is for road and highway spending.

• Deficit spending will not expand the economy. If that were true, then the current $1.2 trillion deficit -- the largest in history -- would already be rescuing the economy.

These are a few other ideas I found:

* There is a proposed 37 million to be spent on a ship to break ice in Antartica. ( You thought I was joking. )

*The stimulus bill will give ACORN and other special interest groups access to some of the money. (ACORN is being investigated in several states for voter fraud.)

*The stimulus bill will spend several million dollars building ATV trails.

*Illegal immigrants and other non-tax paying peoples will have access to stimulus money.

*3 billion dollars or so will be spent on new computers, light bulbs, and cars for government officials.

*The stimulus bill is several hundred pages long. Obama's biggest complaint about the Patriot Act (I'm not saying I agree with it) was that it was rushed through. This bill is just as long and is going through just as fast. How many more earmarks and pork-barrell items does it contain?I could go on and on, but I'm not going to. I hope you get the point. Two more points brought up by Glenn. The size of the stimulus is sufficient to give every family in the U.S. $17,000, gas in their cars for two straight years. Could you use that kind of money right now?With so many other ways to fix the economy more deficit spending is not the answer. It's fascinating to me that something as simple as living a morally consertative life could fix the economy.