Just a day before Valentine's Day, the current occupant of the White
House demonstrated his love for United States citizen/consumers by
signing the so-called “Economic Stimulus Act of 2008” into law.
Sitting behind a small desk with a banner that shouted "Boosting Our
Economy," he inked a $107-million spending package that will send (any
week now) tax “rebate” checks ranging between $300 and $1,200 to
middle- and low-income taxpayers (which is to say, most of us).
Joining in the photo-op were Congressional Democratic leaders Nancy
Pelosi and crew, all beaming to celebrate this brilliant "booster shot"
that will supposedly inoculate the United States economy against the
virulent “R” word (shhhh…”recession”).

According to the corporate and political leaders of the U.S. Empire (and the two
groups are virtually indistinguishable), here’s how the “Economic
Stimulus Act of 2008” is supposed to work. Immediately upon receiving
our rebate check, our job is to head to the mall or the Internet and
buy a new laptop computer, a plasma television, or a car! It's
that easy and everyone wins! We get some cool stuff, kick-start
the economy, and fall in love with our politicians all over again. (And
did we mention that 2008 is, coincidently, an election
year?)

Except that this $107-million “stimulus” plan is nothing more than a “band-aid” (read
“short-sighted”) solution to a much more systemic global economic
dilemma, and anyone awake and paying attention understands that it will
do next to nothing to stimulate anything, let alone help stabilize our
ailing national economy.

Even the imperial pundits, prophets, and powers-that-be are honest about this. “There is
no evidence that [rebates] have meaningfully stimulated either
consumption or growth,” observed former Reagan/Bush I official Bruce
Bartlett in a March 24 New York Times op-ed piece entitled “Stop Those
Checks.” “By and large,” he concluded, “people saved the money they
received or paid bills (which is the same thing); very few used their
rebates to increase spending.”

Bartlett's solution of one month ago, now but a faint whiff of a suggestion
archived in the electronic ether, called on Congress to rescind the
“stimulus” legislation (yeah, sure) and create a “mortgage Superfund
site” to clean up what he called the “toxic waste” of our financial
crisis. And Holsteins can fly,
right?

We’ve got another idea. The idea behind www.KeepItInVermont.org
is to create a space for Vermonters to swap stories about how we can
put our “rebate” checks to work supporting our neighbors, farmers,
businesses, and not-for-profits right here at in the Green
Mountains. At the website, Vermont citizens can make an anonymous
pledge indicating how they will spend their “rebate” money in-state,
boosting our economy and enabling us to track how much rebate money
Vermonters have kept here at home.

Let's begin with a healthy dose of realism. Between the two of us, we know
very few citizens in Vermont who aren’t struggling to make ends meet.
Most folks we know work two, three, or four jobs to cover the costs
incurred by rising fuel prices, a falling dollar, a “war on terror”
that will not end in our lifetimes” (or so we are told), and the
increasing cost of health care and other basic social services. Most of
us here in Vermont need more money to pay our bills, put food on the
table, and to save for our kids' education.

But let’s be honest. All of the above investments are NOT what the U.S.
government’s economic stimulus checks are supposed to be used for. If
Vermonters do with our “rebate” checks what the U.S. government and
Fortune 500 corporations want us to do (and let’s not forget that they
spend somewhere between a trillion and two trillion tax-free dollars
every year on slick marketing propaganda reminding us of our proper
role), we will purchase a new computer, or a TV from a big box store
headquartered on the other side of the country, or a (insert product X
here).

Whoosh!

That giant sucking sound is our “found” rebate check money leaving Vermont.

On the other hand, if we Vermonters re-invest our windfall of “found”
money in our local economies, we can do some good work. Much has been
written about the “multiplier effect” of our dollars spent locally: if
we take our money to our local farmers, and they spend that money at
local stores, which in turn pay local employees, who spend some money
on a nice dinner at local restaurants, whose chefs pay local farmers
for the food served in the restaurants…

 You get the idea. Invest locally, keep our dollars in state, and
“stimulate” our neighbors. Each of us can choose to re-invest our
“found” money in myriad ways that stimulate our communities, and we’ve
got a whole bunch of ideas at the web site already – see
www.keepitinvermont.org.

Demographic data indicate that we have 250,000 tax-paying households in Vermont.
Estimating conservatively, at $600 per rebate check per household, we
could generate $150 million for the Vermont economy if everyone made a
thoughtful decision to reinvest their money in the Vermont economy.

$150 million. Now that’s what you call a “stimulus” package.

Serious money

Let’s go one step further. What if, at the local level, Vermont
neighborhoods or entire towns considered how best to re-invest our
found “rebate” money, given the looming crises of Peak Oil, climate
change, and other 21st century dilemmas we are just beginning to
consider?

Considered collectively, our rebate checks total up to big chunk of change. A little math is
helpful. The two of us live in a town with approximately 525
homesteads; estimating more optimistically now, the “rebate” checks at
$1,000 per homestead ($600 for singles, $1,200 for married couples
filing jointly, plus an additional $300 per child under 17), our rebate
checks would total $525,000.

What could our town do with more than half a million dollars of “found” money?

Now, multiply that figure by 256 towns (our town is more or less of average
size) – for a total of $128,000,000.

That’s $128 million dollars. (Exactly three times the amount of U.S. taxpayer
money it cost the IRS to simply mail 130 million households their
preliminary “your rebate checks will be coming soon!” announcements
last March.)

What could Vermonters do with between $128 million and $150 million?

We posed this question to some of our neighbors. Here are just a few ideas
they generated off the top of their heads, beyond the
obvious.

All of us have watched home heating oil prices spike these past few years. What if towns created firewood
co-ops? Citizens might arrange to bring in a large quantity of local or
regional logwood at wholesale rates to a central location, pay to
cut/split/process it, and then transport the firewood to member homes,
either in individual vehicles or through renting a biodiesel-fueled
dump truck. Members get the wood for a significant discount over
"retail split/delivered" costs, while fueling long-term demand for more
firewood to transition us off of ever-more-expensive imported fossil
fuel energy sources.

Or why not create an investment fund that offers zero-interest loans, education and
supply-chain connections to enable our farmers to learn how to
transition their horse-power away from oil-powered vehicles, and back
to horses, ox (or yak) teams and human-power? Those Vermonters who have
seen “The Power of Community” documentary understand what happened in
Cuba – the only nation in the world (so far) to have “Peak Oil”
suddenly thrust upon them – when the Soviet Union collapsed and Cubans
suddenly lost access to their only supply line for cheap fossil fuel
energy. Cuban agri-researchers had alternative plans in place to assist
farmers and citizens in making the transition to a more
human-energy-intensive but ultimately more productive farm economy. We
could start to do the same with our “found” money in our own
communities, given the emerging reality of Peak Oil
globally.

Or maybe start town or regional energy cooperatives to purchase solar panels, wind turbines, or solar
hot water systems? This would require an initial investment in
non-local technologies like solar panels or turbines (with the help of
Vermont’s alternative energy industries), but the resulting energy
generated would stay in the local economy, particularly if families and
neighborhoods explored micro-grid possibilities and new net-metering
options.

In most towns, the public school
building facilities represent a town’s most significant asset. Why not
pool together “found” money to equip our schools’ rooftops with solar
panels and/or solar hot water/biomass heating systems? This has the
added benefit of educating young Vermonters in the importance of energy
conservation and alternative energy production at a time when we ought
to be giving serious attention to these questions.

Whatever we decide to do with our “rebate” money (and maybe we’ll decide to save
it), the federal government’s $107 million “stimulus” plan offers
Vermonters a unique opportunity to stimulate a wide array of
alternative food, energy, entrepreneurial and nonprofit endeavors right
here in our communities around the Green Mountains. And given the
current course of the U.S. Empire as it speeds toward the cliff of
financial collapse, this opportunity may not present itself again any
time soon.

So, check out the www.keepitinvermont.org
website, make a pledge to stimulate your neighbors, and tell your
Vermont friends and associates about how you plan to “Keep it in
Vermont!”

Robin McDermott is a co-founder of the Mad River Valley
Localvore Project. She and her husband, Ray, operate their business,
QualityTrainingPortal, from their home in Waitsfield, where they also
grow much of their own food. Rob Williams is a teacher, historian,
writer, and musician, and is associate publisher and (web)editor of
Vermont Commons. He lives in Waitsfield.