How About a Taxpayer Bailout?

How About a Taxpayer Bailout?

by Mark Luedtke

Do you know how much money you make? I
bet you know how much money you take home, but do you
know your gross pay for each pay period? If you don't, take a look at your latest pay
stub and check out the difference between your take home pay and your
gross pay. Imagine how much different your life would be if you pocketed your gross pay instead of just your net pay, after government
withholds your income and payroll taxes. But that'll never happen,
right?

Well, that's exactly what Republican
Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert is proposing. An idealistic second
term congressman who hasn't yet been corrupted by Washington, Gohmert
thinks Americans know how to spend the money we earn better than the
politicians. And he's right.

Back in September, Treasury Sec.
Paulson convinced President Bush that the sky would fall if Congress
didn't hand $700 billion to Paulson to buy up toxic mortgage
securities to unclog the credit system. President Bush made
Paulson's case, and Congress, against the will of the people, rolled
over and created the TARP program. But Paulson hasn't spent one dime
buying toxic mortgage securities as advertised. He ditched that plan as soon as the legislation passed.

Diana Henriques reported in the The New
York Times: “The head of a new Congressional panel set up to
monitor the gigantic federal bailout says the government still does
not seem to have a coherent strategy for easing the financial crisis,
despite the billions it has already spent in the effort. Elizabeth
Warren, the chairwoman of the oversight panel, said in an interview
Monday that the government instead seemed to be lurching from one
tactic to the next without clarifying how each step fits into an
overall plan.”

That's charitable. Sec.
Paulson has spent $350 billion of borrowed money that taxpayers will
have to pay back, with interest, inflating the stock portfolios of his personal friends on
Wall Street and the very banks and mortgage companies who created
this crisis. His pals at Citigroup alone received $306 billion in
taxpayer guarantees. Despite Paulson's efforts, or more likely
because of them, the stock market plummeted 2,000 points and
continues to bounce like a ping pong ball, settling ever lower
as we fall deeper into recession.

That was predictable. It's
impossible that one man or a handful of men could have more
knowledge to make our economy work than all Americans. Hank
Paulson and his staff are not smarter than all 300 million Americans
combined. This is a perfect example of the fatal flaw of central
planning. It never works because it's impossible for a few people to
have more information on what citizens want than citizens.

So Rep. Gohmert
proposed empowering Americans. Paulson already spent $350 billion of
the $700 billion bailout package to no good effect, and he doesn't know what to do with the other $350 billion. But Rep. Gohmert noticed the federal government collects about $167
billion in income and payroll taxes every month, or $334 billion in
two months, so Gohmert proposes using
the remaining TARP funds to finance a two month federal income and
payroll tax holiday – a taxpayer bailout. Every
American would keep 100 percent of his or her paycheck for 2 months.

Allowing Americans to keep 100 percent
of their paychecks to pay off debt, save, or spend as Americans see
fit is the most effective economic stimulus possible. This plan rewards Americans according to their productivity. Creating wealth powers our economy, so if you create a lot
of wealth, i.e. make a lot of money,
you'll have a big tax holiday. If you create little wealth, i.e. make little money, you won't get as much. If you create no
wealth, you won't get anything. Nothing could be more
fair, efficient, and therefore effective than allowing Americans to keep the money we earn. That we debate government allowing us to keep our own money shows how badly we let government get out of control.

But it's unlikely Gohmert's plan will succeed. Democrats, and recently Republicans, use taxpayer dollars to buy
votes from poor people. Social programs - all forms of
welfare - redistribute wealth from successful Americans to
unsuccessful Americans in order to buy the votes of the unsuccessful
Americans. Barack Obama told Joe the Plumber he wants to expand wealth redistribution. Politicians consider the
money we earn theirs, not ours, to use for their purposes. That's why they withhold their share off the top.

Gohmert's plan would require professional
politicians of both parties to transfer power over that $350 billion to the people who earned it.
Politicians never give up power. We have to take power from them.
But the media allies of the politicians are burying Gohmert's plan so
the people won't rise up and demand to keep
their own money.

But politicians are most scared of the
long term consequences of letting people know just how much money we earn and how much government takes from us. So it comes back
to paychecks – understanding the difference between take home pay and
gross pay. If Americans spend two months keeping all the money we
earn instead of having government
confiscate a large portion from us before we ever see it,
Americans won't want to go back. Gohmert's plan would spark a much
needed tax revolt.

A tax revolt would empower Americans a
the cost of the power of politicians, and the only way that will
happen is if we make it happen.