What a great time to talk about the recent stimulus package - tax month. It took me about a year to get through the 1,200 pages of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, so if you read like me, you'll finish the 1,100 pages of the spending bill (in the version I reviewed) by about March 2010, if you can maintain interest and stay awake. (Can't sleep? Read the stimulus package. Get it?) The bill was not read by most representatives and it's not hard to see why it - it's long and dry. Even the millions of dollars tossed happily about here and there are more depressing than encouraging.

A trimmer 407-page PDF of the American recovery and reinvestment act of 2009 is available at Recovery.gov (after about five picks). It breaks into two divisions with a total of 23 titles. Let's see, is there something for farmers? Check. For financially irresponsible states? Check. Global warming? Check. Medical device manufacturers? Ah, not exactly. But read closely and you may find a few thin veins worth mining.

For example, Division A, Title 2 looks promising. It's called Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies, Department of Commerce. What do lawmakers consider “science”? Well, they have ladled out a whopping $1 billion to the Census Bureau, $650 million for digital-to-analog TV converter boxes, and a somewhat paltry $90 million in outreach grants to educate vulnerable population segments. That last item might be useful. There should be demographic groups - baby boomers for one -s that would be better off if properly educated about your products.

Another possibility for medical test equipment manufacturers is found within two lines a the top of page 15 referencing an additional $220 million for “Scientific and Technical Research and Services” to be spent by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. And Title 13, Section 2, Health Information Technology, could prove useful if your company is in the healthcare software or computer networking business.

Getting closer

Some Titles get close to what medical devices manufacturers might find useful. Take, for example, Division B, Title 4, Medicare and Medicaid health information technology; miscellaneous Medicare provisions. Perhaps it would be possible to build record keeping features into medical devices and thereby qualify for some of these funds.

Of course, trying to finagle interpretations to pull in a few R&D dollars becomes a tedious effort and probably counter productive. Well-run companies don't need this kind of assistance. Sadly, there is not one mention of a tax reduction in the bill that would let companies plow profits back into R&D, new equipment, and new hires, this would stimulate the economy more efficiently than government largess.

Forbes magazine often reports that the tax rate on American businesses is 38%, second highest in the first world. Would chopping that figure down not make more sense? Doing so would let companies of all sorts actually keep what they earn to encourage their growth.

That's so painfully obvious. We should remind the president of it right away. Do you think he'll listen?