Real stimulus, balancing the budget at little cost.
Balancing the budget, energy independence, fighting terror, corporate welfare at little cost is something we not only can but have to do. Especially because they have the same cause, corporate welfare for big oil, coal.
We every year subsidize big oil by our Persian Gulf military programs, fighting oil wars which is the cause of most terrorism, by $600B/yr. The only reason we are there is to support/subsidize big oil. Once we are close to energy independence there is no need for us being there or fight such wars, saving our soldiers lives and from devastating injuries, not to mention $600B/year. Ask most any military person and they will tell you it's all about oil, not freedom or anything else.
Next we spend $400B for overseas oil and that's going up fast, that directly support Iran, oil dictators and the people/wars we are fighting and terrorists. So every $ we spend on oil, 40% goes to those who are fighting us. Is that smart, paying both sides of the wars? Let's get out of that mess and let them kill each other, not us.
Now add tax breaks, sweetheart royalty deals, etc and this comes to $1.1T/yr you pay now mostly in taxes!!
Coal's large subsidies comes from the massive pollution from mining to burning that destroys our land, water, air, fish, buildings, bridges, health costing another $300B/yr in higher taxes, health care costs, mostly you pay like oil, in your taxes, health insurance, food, etc costs.
Interestingly this comes to about our budget deficit!! But how do we fix it? It's surprisingly simple needing little cost or regulation. In fact can cost far less, lower regulations in just 5 yrs, than now.
The solution is having those who cause the problem, pay it's real cost and letting a true free market work.
The method is a tax and rebate setup where oil, coal are taxed their true cost and the revenue from that is rebated back to the public in a rebate of 75% or the revenue. This covers the higher costs though many smart people will use that, about $300/month, to buy a high mileage car and make one's home more eff by insulating, more eff and alternative energy equipment to lower those costs.
Putting on new insulation shells, windows, alt energy, etc on homes/buildings will put the construction workers back to work, start many new businesses, increase eff car, alternative vehicle sales that will stimulate the economy by 3 million new jobs with another 3 million jobs to support them conservatively. It will also save having to build, pay for new powerplants. .
The beauty of this is it's paid for by energy savings and by oil dictators, terrorists in large part because it will drive down the price of oil so they pay 50% of it and hopefully, destroy them or at least make them weak!! The rest comes from higher tax receipts from increased jobs and less unemployment, pollution and health care costs.
All the gov needs to do it tax the fossil fuels so a real free market can work. And through the SBA do start up and small business loans of under $50k which can't, won't be had from banks. Loans for home eff, alt energy work through utilities or other orgs as banks won't do those either. The cost of these paid for in energy savings by repaid loans and increased tax revenue means the gov is likely to make a profit, not a loss.
They also need to make it legal for anyone to sell electricity and make utilities pay full price they charge for it minus 10% for being the middleman, real net metering.
This will allow businesses to build and lease AE equipment at little to no cost to consumers out of pocket, paid for in energy savings. Since lessors will lose if equipment is not good, they will only do good work, cutting many scams that might rise otherwise.
The other 25% revenue should go directly to pay down the national debt these subsides drove up. All for being truly fiscally conservative and smart. Or we can stay at war, go broke and become a has been nation to subsidize corporate welfare. Send this to your congress people and demand they implement it. It's the only real patriotic thing to do for national and economic security.