Here's a novel stimulus plan

President Obama wants to pump another trillion dollars of federal money back into the economy. Democrats are lining up to make sure their favorite industry, cause, or district is part of the largesse. We are poised to see the control of our economy shift from the private sector to the government, in ways that may not be able to be undone for decades, if at all. The ripple effect across the globe will be enormous, and the unintended consequences of such a sea change cannot even be quantified yet.

And the best the Republicans have to say is that it's too much money? They're whining because the socialists who now control Washington have not given them a big enough seat at the table to determine which industries should get checks that will be paid by our great grandchildren?

No wonder we lost.

Here's a novel idea: if you want to get a trillion dollars working in the American economy, how about taking a trillion dollars less out of it to begin with???

If Republicans said, "Instead of having government get its claws even deeper into American business, we're going to reduce our involvement - and our cut of the take - by $1 trillion through tax cuts targeted to stimulate business, relieve homeowners and working families and encourage charitable giving", now that would be a bold alternative vision that Americans could get behind.

Imagine - a $1 trillion tax cut that:
- rewards small business investment by beefing up deductions and tax credits that can be taken for start ups, expansion, providing jobs, providing health insurance and other benefits;

- relieves homeowners by providing optional interest deduction schedules that allow homeowners to deduct mortgage interest at accelerated rates, perhaps even an outright tax credit in interest for the next two years rather than a deduction;

- at least doubles the dependent deduction to provide relief for families with children;

- completely reforms the puny deductions that can be taken for healthcare costs right now and provides taxpayers the ability to take outright tax credits for premiums and other out of pocket expenses;

- cuts the capital gains rate;

- in a new move to encourage charitable giving, provide a tax credit for charitable contributions made to 501c3 organizations up to $100,000.

Instead of porking out $1 trillion in programs and projects that will only reward the Democrats' constituencies and strengthen their socialist stranglehold on the only real bastion of economic freedom in the entire world, let's put government on a $1 trillion diet by cutting taxes to stimulate the economy. The federal government gets $1 trillion further in debt either way. At least this way we've got real economic stimulation going on, and it will force us to confront federal government obesity head on without pretending we had no choice in the matter.

Come on, Republicans. We've got $1 trillion to work with. Get creative. Get a vision Americans can get behind and stop the Democrats before they pull the plug on the American dream.