So the obvious solution to this particular "chicken/egg" puzzle is to prime the jobs.. Had Obama spent that billion bucks on jobs programs, instead of bailing out the big banks and Wall Street, the employment rate would be below 7% by now.
And, the banks would be doing better as well since workers like to see as much money in their bank accounts as possible. That's the sustainable way to save banks, by increasing to them the virtually free flow of consumer savings. Oh, that and forcing banks back out of the securities arena, and this time keeping them out of it. Because, come on folks, let's stop mincing words about this... Wall Street's love for banks is identical to the love Coach Sandusky had for young boys.
3) Taxes
Republicans have made taxes the centerpiece of ... well everything that's gone right and gone wrong since the Big Bang. Still both conservatives and liberals are guilty of demagoguery when it comes to tax policies. Both parties have ruthlessly used tax policy to buy love, votes and contributions. Social and fiscal engineering through tax policy has, over the decades, saddled the nation with a Frankenstein tax code that now spends most of it's time doing harm, rather than good. And it cannot be just "tweaked. " It cannot be"adjusted." It cannot be "fixed."
It needs to be killed - dead.
But there are so many goodies buried in the existing tax code, that killing it and starting fresh terrifies both sides. Conservatives love the byzantine tax shelter gimmickry that allows high-price lawyers and accountants help their wealthy clients avoid millions, even billions, in taxes. Liberals rally around those breaks that benefit average Americans and the poor, like the home mortgage deduction and earned-income tax credit. Killing the Frankenstein puts all those goodies at risk.
But killing it, and starting over from scratch, is the only way any of that is going to change. Only if both sides have to face the fiscal music by pushing all their chips into the pot together, will we ever get a fair and equitable tax code - and just as important - a balanced and sustainable fiscal reality.
But what's equitable? I call it the "Willie Sutton Theory of High Finance." When asked why he robbed banks for a living, Willie Sutton replied incredulously, "Because, that's where the money is." Likewise in tax policy you have to go where the money is.
The payroll tax already bleeds the working class, weekly or biweekly, of as much as one dares bleed them, Take more out of their already modest paychecks and you kill stifle consumer spending.
So that leaves corporations and the "rich." But who's rich? I think about 300 million of our 350 million citizens could come to a consensus on that one -- that any individual with an adjusted annual gross of around a quarter million bucks a year is rich. For couples that might be boosted to around $350,000.
Corporate tax rates are already plenty low and frankly, I'd keep them there. In return though the tax breaks corporations now get should be severely scaled back or eliminated, retaining only those tax breaks that actually encourage both hiring and spending on things that create demand like equipment, software and domestic expansion.
Then get rid of the BS in the code. Repeal any and all loopholes that allow individuals or companies to squirrel away dough in off shore tax havens. And then make that kind of money-hiding a felony in the future. Period. (An errant musing: Mitt Romney would be in better shape today had he felt the same way about having off shore bank accounts as he did about having illegal aliens mowing his lawns back when he said, "I can't have illegals working on my lawn. I'm going to run for public office!")
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