No. No. No. No rebate checks

October 21st, 2008 at 03:28pm Linda Grist Cunningham

Memo to Congress and President Bush: Stop encouraging Americans to buy stuff. Profligate spending at our favorite stores got us part way into this economic morass. You should not have done those rebate checks earlier this year (lot of good that did), and you certainly ought not do it again.

That “send ‘em another check so they can spend it” philosophy is bad government, bad economics and just plain bad karma. President Bush said Monday he’s “open” to hearing about another round of rebate checks. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and some Congressional Democrats, along with others looking greedily at retail cash, are trying to figure out a way to send rebates to our pocketbooks. Estimates range from $150 billion to $300 billion. Egads, are they nuts?

I remain a supporter of the various economic recovery plans that fall loosely under the “big bailout” umbrella. I think they were the absolute only thing that could have been done on a very short time frame to soften the landing as the global economy catapults off the cliff.

But, we do not need more cash in our pockets to buy stuff. We need jobs. Jobs, you hear? Help our companies make our jobs safe. Make new jobs, including public works jobs. (How about a plan to fix our infrastructure?)

With a job, we stand a decent chance we can keep paying the rent, the mortgage, the doctor’s bills, the groceries and the utilities. If we can do that, we can scrape by for the next couple of years as the global economy rights itself. We might even have some of our own cash left over to spend. It won’t be pretty, and we probably won’t be buying another smart phone, but we’ll be OK. If there’s $300 billion lying around, make — and help companies protect — jobs.

This rebate thing is tantamount to “let them eat cake if they have no bread.” Jobs. Bread. Not one dime for cake.

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