The idea of having a Tax Holiday for all Americans, instead of just giving away another $350 Billion to the FatCats, is the brainchild of Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas)–Check out Human Events for Rep Gohmert’s 12/5/08 piece titled: “Help Me Give America a Tax Holiday.” Gohmert is a former Judge, now Congressman, whose Texas district sits atop the legendary East Texas oil field, largest in the continental US, and who sits on three House committees: Judiciary, Committee on Resources and Small Business.
Rep. Gohmert’s Tax Holiday concept is startlingly simple, thought provoking and reassuringly representative of the kind of ‘outside the box’ thinking we so desperately need right now. Rep Gohmert opposed the fat BailOut passed by Congress this past Fall, offering this insight why and what he instead suggests:
“I was one of the House conservatives who opposed the massive bank bailout last October because I didn’t believe that government was smarter than the stock market. And now that about $350 billion in taxpayers’ money has been spent without much success, I think it should stop right now. That’s why when Congress reconvenes — presumably Monday — I’ll introduce legislation to give all Americans a two-month income tax holiday.”
I doubt many F&HD readers disagree with Rep Gohmert that “government [is not] smarter than the stock market.” Puppet masters of the latter were too smart for their own good and the former are still running hard trying to figure out how this economic meltdown could happen here. The old line: “Trust me, I’m from the Government,” has lost whatever humor lingered over its corpse as we have all collectively sweated out the events of this Fall.
A Tax Holiday? Why not? Newt Gingrich, in his piece on the same Humanevents.com website on December 1 (“A People’s Stimulus Package: A Tax Holiday instead of a Bailout”), enthusiastically agreed with Rep Gohmert’s clever idea, even amplifying the proposal to include this: “If a Two Month Tax Holiday Sounds Good, Why Not Six Months?” Newt also adds “a FICA tax holiday,” especially for the “working poor.”
Rep. Gohmert also made this important point in his 12/5 piece: “Economic fear is like the most contagious of diseases — easy to spread, but terribly difficult to stop. The panic that Secretary Paulson helped create will have to be calmed by others.” Indeed, Paulson spent “two weeks on national media” this Fall, “proclaiming” that “the financial sky was falling,” but, as Rep. Gohmert noted, this kind of Chicken Little provocation to paranoia was very much overplayed – “After the bailout bill was defeated the first time in the House, I woke up the next morning and looked out my window. Sure enough, the sun was rising and the sky wasn’t lying in pieces on my front lawn.” Crying Wolf to get bills passed is bad policy because, when the wolf does not come fast enough for our 6 o’clock news, ‘film at 11,’ sound bite mentalities, all you have left is the fear you created. Addressing that climate of fear is the real need.
The beauty of the Tax Holiday idea is that it fights fire with fire. Media and Government representatives like Mr. Paulson have whipped us up into a frenzy of terror, barked now from every blog, TV and newspaper, that the economic world as we know it has hit a brick wall at high speed and has been obliterated. Mailing people ‘refund’ checks earlier this year went over like a lead balloon because, apparently, most people stuffed them into their savings accounts due to fear of what is to come, rather than spending the money, as intended by the BrainTrust that thought that one up.
But, a Tax Holiday creates the magnificent, fear-throttling illusion that Mr. and Mrs. American Taxpayer have received a pay increase and now really have more money (importantly, that they earned) available to spend, instead of some one-time check falling like Manna from Heaven, unconnected to any effort on their part! And, that helps to push fear back into the box from whence it sprang and, hopefully, to calm consumers down enough to begin consuming again – the real lifeblood of our once vibrant economy. Best of all, a Tax Holiday costs no more than the ineffectual BailOut giveaways, according to analyses Gohmert and Newt cite (no, I have not studied the numbers)!
Of course, with last Friday’s staggering job loss numbers (which may well prove to have saved the US AutoMakers after all – timing is everything!) and the nearly 2 million jobs lost in 2008, the Devil’s Advocate in me must ask (and you know somebody will), ‘What good is a Tax Holiday if you don’t have a job?’
The point is that we have to start thinking ‘outside the box’ right now. Rep Gohmert’s idea, as amplified by Newt, seems to be a far better alternative for helping Main Street than showering more money on the undeserving, now roundly and deservedly despised, Fat Cats of Wall Street. Let’s hope this idea and others equally innovative gain traction in the new Congress about to be seated!