A Tax Credit for Americans to Buy Gas and Eggs

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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A Tax Credit for Americans to Buy Gas and Eggs

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After a staggeringly high consumer price index figure in June, the government has yet found a way to tame inflation. Over a 12-month period, the Bureau of Labor reported costs for the items it covers in its consumer price index calculation rose 9.1%, which is the fastest rate in four decades. The government has struggled to find a way to bring down the number, which could keep the United States from a consumer-spending-driven recession. Such an effort also would help America’s financially underprivileged from an economy that has started to decimate their household budgets and drive some into poverty.
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In our Fight Inflation: Don’t Buy Eggs and Prepare for Recession: Don’t Buy a Car stories, we pointed out that the only means to fight inflation today is to avoid buying items that have posted price increases in high double-digit percentages year over year. Several other items, like gasoline, would qualify, but lower consumption is impossible for most drivers.
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Among the most obvious things the federal government could do is offer tax credits for the daily items Americans buy. Such a program would cost the government billions of dollars,  but certainly no more than the tens of billions of dollars the federal government has appropriately funneled to Ukraine.
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An example of a tax credit that would substantially tame inflation would be $1 per gallon of gas. The federal government investment for this would be massive. The positive effects on the economy would be as well. Other items that should qualify are eggs, butter, some meats and some grain products.
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The chances of a recession late this year or early next are very high. Some economists believe a recession already has begun. The driver of this is almost totally inflation. Congress and the president may say they cannot afford inflation-cutting tax credits, but can they afford not to give them?

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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