STIMULESS!

Sad to say, we have no more money for a stimulus package. As Hall & Oates sang,

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"We're out of bucks, we're out of bucks."

President Obama got one shot at spending a wad of money on "shovel ready" stimulus projects, buying car companies, extending jobless benefits for 2 years, and loaning money to big banks that lent stupid money on a stupid, overheated housing market.

While spending several trillion, the President made sure we all knew the unemployment rate was going to back off to about 8% as a result. He came to Washington to solve some problems: "Yes We Can!" "Hope And Change!"

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And by jingo, change was coming. And change came. Just not the change we were looking for.

Last week we learned the jobless rate is 9.1%. The Dow plunged about 500 points. S&P is downgrading American debt. If a Republican President presided over a 9.1% jobless rate with no growth in sight, there would be million-man marches on Washington and burning effigies hanging from the Statue of Liberty.

President Obama's plan? Umm, extend unemployment. Some more. Umm, shovel-ready government works programs. More of those shovel-ready. Projects. Shovel. Ready. And, umm, ahhh . . . more, ah, taxes, ahh, on the rich, ah, like me, umm, to ah, to pay for all this stuff.

He's out of options, folks. He already had his big Keynesian shopping spree. He wants to do another one. It's all he's got, but he ain't got no dough. He's got no change, no hope, no "yes we can" left.

Right now it is all shrill lectures and sniping, 24/7.

Look, here's the deal. If Obama and his New York Times economist friends, like Paul Krugman, were right, and the Stimulus had jump started the economy like they said it would, at this moment we'd be nominating the President for the Nobel Prize in Economics. They might give it to him anyway, just for talking, like they did with the Nobel Peace prize, but I'm just saying.

If the President's policies had fixed the economy, he'd be a shoe-in for re-election. And he'd be riding that wave, for sure, taking credit for every last job and every last increase in the stock market.

So why blame the American people when they look at the "Big Spend" and see that it went poorly? Like the "Big Dig" in Boston. Now we've still got a lousy economy and an even bigger debt problem.

Actually acknowledging the problem and reversing course is all but impossible for the President, who as a disciple of Saul Alinsky isn't going to magically start calling for a contraction in government spending. The President is too sure he's right to do something like that, and anyway, his political base on the left would abandon him instantly if he tried to put a wet blanket on an ever-expanding government. The government bubble is an article of religious faith on the left. Going broke is not going to deter the religious fervor.

Nope, it's Big Spend or bust. Unfortunately, right now it's both.

I just heard someone interview Ed Asner about the economy, because Asner played Warren Buffett in a movie. I know, it's goofy. It's like interviewing Charlie Sheen about military policy because he played a soldier in Platoon. Anyway, Ed likes Buffet because Buffy says he should pay more taxes.

This gave me a super idea, which I have trademarked under "STIMULESS!" There are a few hundred billionaires in America. Based on what Ed Asner said, apparently billionaires all WANT to pay more in taxes.

Here's the plan. Ed Asner interviews all the billionaires. Each one says he/she should be taxed more. Then we pass a law taxing anyone who said "yes" to Ed Asner. Actually, we pass a law taking all of their money, because they can afford it and they spoke to Ed.

The total wealth of all of the world's billionaires is about 2.4 trillion. America has about 30% of the billionaires, so if all of them say "yes" to Ed Asner, that will give us about a trillion dollars, give or take a few hundred million.

That will be enough to cover 8 months of the Obama Administration's deficit spending, which right now is whistling along at about 1.5 trillion a year. The 8 months will give me enough time to buy a lot of 50 pound bags of rice and coffee, so I can ride out the "Mad Max" era into which the President's current policy is leading us.

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STIMULESS! The program is exquisitely simple. Just tax Democrats and billionaires, each of whom say they want more taxes. This way the President can keep his political base happy paying more taxes, while still appealing to Independents and Republicans who don't like taxes.

STIMULESS! It will quickly gain bipartisan support. It is the only sure-fire way to get America going again.

You are welcome, America.