Government at all levels are scrambling to stimulate the economy, mostly through either big spending packages or through tax cuts.
One way to increase economic activity without spending much, if any money, is the liberalization of vice laws. At present cities, states, and even entire countries loose revenue to locations that have more liberal laws concerning sex, drugs, and gambling. All these stimulus projects would require is the repeal or loosening of a few existing laws and regulations.
I’m a big proponent of ending drug prohibition. However, that’s going to be hard to do and there is is a huge bureaucracy and multiple government agencies in place for drug enforcement. So using drug legalization or decriminalization as a stimulus is a longer and more complicated process than legalizing/decriminalizing other vices*.
Federal:
State:
City:
*One alternative would be to start by un-scheduling drugs that don’t currently take a lot of law enforcements resources currently, such as ketamine, LSD, DMT, psilocybin, and various analogs. This leaves all law enforcement agencies in-tact and operating at or near present levels while freeing up the market to ramp up sale and manufacture of these drugs. Also, change the scheduling of many prescription drugs to make them easier to obtain without a prescription.
December 1, 2009 at 9:35 pm
I agree with just about everything here. What I’m not sure about is the gun law stuff. Why would repealing gun laws be good? I’m not arguing one way or another, I simply don’t understand.
December 1, 2009 at 9:39 pm
It’s good, from a strictly economic point of view, because it would increase gun sales.
December 2, 2009 at 8:55 pm
So you’re basing your plan on purely economic reasons?
December 2, 2009 at 9:03 pm
Yes, it’s a stimulus plan after all. I don’t disagree ethically with any of the points (I could probably think of a few things that would improve the economy short term that I wouldn’t actually want to see done), but the point is that all of these are ways governments could help stimulate the economy without spending a lot of money.