COMMENTARY | While our politicians run around crying that the "sky is falling" over their failure to create a vibrant economy, I propose that a common-sense solution is not that difficult to create.
Taxes
I let that dirty word come out first because one party wants to raise them and the other wants them to remain static. While it could be argued that the Bush tax cuts did little or nothing to stimulate the economy, I shudder to think of where we would be now if they had been allowed to expire.
Instead of raising taxes on businesses both large and small, I believe that a reduction in taxes could be used to stimulate hiring in the following manner:
For every one percent increase in permanent full time jobs added by a business above their current employment levels, a corresponding drop of one percent in taxes should be granted to that company, providing that the employees hired are there for a consecutive period of nine months prior to the tax decrease.
This is not a pie-in-the-sky scenario for the following reason: Each employee hired would be contributing to the government coffers not only in withholding taxes but in Social Security and Medicare taxes as well which would more than make up for the loss in corporate taxes.
Energy Policy
Each year the United States sends more than $4,025,000,000,000 overseas, purchasing foreign oil -- a lot of it to countries that hate us. I achieved this number by going to the website of the U.S. Energy Information Administration and took their 2010 oil import figures and multiplied the total by an average of $95 per barrel.
We have untapped oil reserves in the United States, not only in ANWAR but also in oil shale and oil sands deposits throughout the country. We have coal reserves enough to last for at least another century. It's time we stopped the extremists in the environmental movement from blockading all exploration and usage of carbon based fuels and develop these resources.
Even if we only cut our payments overseas by 50% that would mean a TWO-TRILLION DOLLAR savings that would be used here in our own country.
Cheaper energy leaves our citizens with extra disposable income which can, and in many cases will be used to purchase goods, go on vacations and otherwise "spread the wealth" creating jobs in industry to manufacture and sell those goods and in the service industries to assist them on vacation.
I also propose that five percent of all monies earned within the United States on oil and coal production be used to fund research into alternative fuel projects. This final part would create jobs in the so called "green" industries and further our search for energy independence.
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