Ken Nelson

There is a country that has just gone through massive infrastructure stimulus. New power grids, new roads, school improvements, investments in higher education, new police, and many more government bureaucrats.

So how is it going Afghanistan?  Iraq?

That stimulus has come over the last 6 years. And it was rife with corruption on the Afghani, Iraq, and US sides.

What irks me about our current policies is that they fly in the face of recent experience. We got into trouble with crazy debt, and we are trying crazier debt to get us out of it.   We’ve seen that spending can’t straighten out corrupt systems in Afghanistan and Iraq, but we want to spend spend spend in our own country’s corrupt infrastructure contracting systems.

It’s just dumb.

The most efficient and corruption free way to “stimulate” the economy is to stop taking Social Security taxes. These affect all workers. Most of the money would be spent as it was not taken. And the spending would be free from the corruption of the political pork, earmarking and cost overrun process.

If payroll taxes (about 300 billion a month) isn’t big enough, then if you want more money into banks, drop the highest marginal tax rate.  If you want more money being spent, drop the middle tier.

The only reason this isn’t done is that Congressman and Governors are salivating over taking credit for bridges, roads, federal court houses and other crazy building projects that we don’t really need.  They want to lard up the bill with other things, like requiring X number of their special minority in the contracts, “green” power, union pandering (NEA and UAW mainly). No thanks.

There is need for some infrastructure spending. We need a lot more nuclear power plants. And we need improvements in our electrical grid.  But that is all.

I’m writing my Congressman about this. You should too.  I doubt my letters will have much effect on Orrin Hatch and Jim Bennett. They long ago lost their souls  to the DC system and will sign up for the pork train.  I don’t know about Jim Matheson (my Congressman). I think he talks a good game about keeping spending low, but can’t be trusted because he is a Democrat. You know how they are…

Our government is in a panic and has become even dumber than normal. You can either shrug your shoulders and face a diminished future, or go down fighting.