Capital Idea; One man's proposal to reduce taxes, create jobs and fund the needs of the nation.
In Ken Bohnsack's dream, he tunes in to the Jan. 28 State of the Union address just in time to hear President Bush saying something like this:</br></br>In Ken Bohnsack's dream, he tunes in to the Jan. 28 State of the Union address just in time to hear President Bush saying something like this: "And now, turning to the domestic economy, I will shortly send forward a proposal to allow Congress to create a determined amount of money to be loaned to states, counties and municipalities, interest free, to pay for the rebuilding of the nation's infrastructure.</br></br>"The result, I am confident, will include not merely long-overdue improvements to our deteriorating bridges, streets and highways and the creation of much-needed employment for our people, but also with no increase in the national debt that has plagued our economy in recent years. All of this will be accomplished without added inflation. In fact, my belief is that my proposal will actually reduce inflation, taxes and the federal deficit."</br></br>You're not going to hear any such proposal from President Bush, so hear it from Bohnsack, chairman of a year-old Freeport, Ill., not-for-profit association called Sovereignty.</br></br>The heart of the plan is simple enough: "Sovereignty wants tax-supported bodies to be able to borrow money, interest free, directly from the U.S. Treasury for capital projects and for paying off existing debt. It would be a loan, not a grant, and it would be for capital projects, not day-to-day expenses. The Treasury would get the money not from the federal budget but rather Congress would create the money (as authorized in the U.S. Constitution: Article 1, Section 8, Clause 5) - just like banks and the Federal Reserve do every day."