What a Better Stimulus Bill Would Look Like

Posted by Ian Welsh, Firedoglake at 4:18 AM on January 7, 2009.

What could Obama have proposed instead of tax cuts?  Some very quick examples:

Example: if you want houses refit to be energy efficient, say that Freddie and Fannie will refinance (not rewrite, refi, then it doesn't matter who owns them) mortgages to reduce the payment amounts by the value of the refit plus some, the government will make up the difference.  Specify exactly what is required to get the improved mortgage rates, and have inspectors check the work, even offer some upfront credit to get the job done. (You can easily dump in hundreds of billions into this.  It also allows you to backdoor refi a lot of houses - you can refi at current mortgage rates sort of no matter what, so once people do it they'll get a huge savings if they were in a bad mortgage).

Example: for new buildings, if they meet specified energy requirements, give them a 1% lower mortgage rate.  If they are net energy producers, give them a 2% lower interest rather than otherwise.  The government pays the difference.

Example: offer a rebate for people to buy cars that are fuel efficient beyond a certain level.

Example: do a car buy back of the worst 10% polluting/fuel inefficient cars.

Example: give public transit authorities a 10% budget increase with a mandate to increase service.

Example: California doesn't have enough fire fighters.  Offer to pay to increase the size of the fire fighting corps by 50%.

Example: hire artists to start beautifying various cities/towns with murals, painting of graffiti and in depressed areas of town.

Example: change to energy efficient lightbulbs in every building in the union.

Example: put up high speed wireless in every city in the union (the stuff goes up fast, it doesn't need that much infrastructure).

etc...  Give me a trillion dollars to spend, and I'll find ways to spend it and ask for more.

What are your fast ways to do a stimulus which actually spends money to both restructure and reignite the economy?

Ian Welsh is the managing editor of The Agonist and a sometime contributor to FDL and the Huffington Post.