Thursday, February 05, 2009

The FEMA-style TARP

Ritholtz has a plan for spending the remaining TARP funds.

My plan is very simple: Take 175 million taxpaying households — the bottom 80% or so of all taxpayers. They each get a Debt Reduction check for $2,000 each from Uncle Sam. The twist is it can only be used to pay a pre-existing debt (February 1, 2009 or older) — Mortgages, auto lease/loans, student loans, and revolving credit (MC, V, AMEX) or any retail credit card (Sears, Macys, etc.). The check must be used within 90 days — or its forfeited.


It may not be the most ingenious idea in the world but at least it's a stab at helping out innocent victims of the financial crisis (most of us) and giving taxpayers a return on their investment. Anyway it is certainly preferable to shoveling billions of dollars into the void the way team Geithner/Summers/Obama seems to be proposing.

It's just that the idea of $2,000 dollar checks from the government in the wake of disaster seems so... 2005 around here.

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