OLTIV's Proposal For Spending Tax Rebate

Tax rebates are going out this week. Americans are being given an opportunity that NOBODY in the media or White House has hit upon. It is an opportunity to do something that would not only represent patriotism for this country, but it would also represent an act of purity as requested by Our Lady of America.

One of the most powerful influences we have in making our daily decisions is peer pressure. Peer pressure begins its influence upon our behavior before we speak and it keeps its grip on us throught our entire life. We care so much about how others around us perceive us that we make the majority of our choices with these perceptions in mind. Anyone who says otherwise is just not being truthful with themselves or anyone else.

Anyway, a golden opportunity presents itself with these tax rebates. An opportunity to bring people together in a way we have not experienced as a country since WWII. If implemented with enthusiasm, it would create a patriotic wave across this land that would unify every person under a common ideal that would be seen as an act of purity to every other country on the globe.

What if:

Every American family took their rebates and made a determined decision to spend that money locally?

Every spending decision was based upon not sending that money to foreign manufacturers (directly or indirectly)?

Every spending decision was directed towards making our homes more energy efficient?

If groups of neighbors organized together, they could negotiate better prices from HVAC service companies to send a technician to their block to give their furnaces and A/C units tuneups to increase efficiency and save energy ($$$). The local service company would save money by not travelling all over to make the same number of calls and those dollars would hopefully circulate several more times within the community thus maximizing the economic impact.

How about getting your auto serviced with those dollars to keep it running as fuel-efficient as possible? The dollars stay local and circulate...and you save money at the pump.

How about putting in more insulation in your home?

If taken as an ideological goal, this country would spend this money upgrading its own residential infrastructures and reap the benefits of this economic stimulus for years to come.

Peer pressure can do the job for us as a whole that we may not be able to commit to as individuals. If this was accepted as "public policy", the result could be beyond what anyone in Washington could have ever dreamed.

If too many Americans do not accept this opportunity to do something good for all of us and simply dismiss this as just another "windfall" of cash, we'll probably see an increase in laptop computer and flat screen television sales...both of which will create a giant sucking sound of cash leaving our country...again! Not patriotic and certainly not an example of purity in our lives.

We need to stop bashing our leaders and realize we are in a crisis that is within our own ability to help solve.

Patriotism and Purity are both fueled by peer pressure. Fortunately for us, it is an easily renewable resource.