Four months ago, readers of this column got a report about the real causes underlying the problems affecting the credit markets, the housing situation, the general economy, the Federal Reserve’s actions and more.

Now, incumbents in Washington in the Executive and Legislative branches are working on a stimulus package to ward off, or lessen the effects of recession.

Their idea of a fix is to incur still more debt to address the debt problems we have as a country and as individuals, in order to continue consumer spending to keep the economy going: Same ol’ same ol’.

Four months ago, we urged readers to take action personally, to stop unnecessary spending — to stop cold turkey and increase savings, immediately and persistently.

That remains the right actions for individuals; and, hold on for what’s coming: Government!

Government at all levels must go on a diet voluntarily; or be put on a strict one by citizens.

Americans need across-the-board cuts in all tax arenas: payroll, income, dividend, capital gains, inheritance, etc., as well as sales, excise, fees, etc. That is the better way to stimulate both the general economy and every individual citizen’s personal economy.

Let’s look at two examples:

First, cut payroll taxes for individual wage-earners — all employees. Pick a percentage for your own thought process here.

Want to throw a bone to the incumbent politicians and controller-types populating bureaucracies? Let them decide whether to cut the employer side of payroll taxes. Personally, I would cut the employer side by the same percentage. And perhaps, tie it to reinvestment in hard assets that support job growth inside that company, or, alternatively, specific new employee job slots.

That would not be hard for government to track at all. And, it would give government workers something to do. Simple case of tracking total employee Social Security numbers in a company.

Want bureaucrats to control it further? Have the company declare specific new employees as “reinvestment job slots” periodically. That would give government workers more to do.

You might say, “wait just a moment, We could insist government use computers to do the tracking.”

And, I would respond, “You’re right. It would take just seconds to do the same thing using computers!”

Secondly, consider the following. What would happen to your purchasing power if either the feds or your state government would cut, drop, or even suspend gas taxes?

Nationally, the combined burden of federal, state and local gas taxes costs American drivers an average of 45.9 cents on every gallon purchased, according to data from the Tax Foundation. Using their data, the federal tax on each gallon is 18.6 cents per gallon, so the average state tax added to each gallon is 27.3 cents.

How much tax does your state add to the per gallon cost of gasoline? Check into it. You likely will be shocked. And, be aware that many state officials are now “working the public” to accept even higher state taxes on gasoline. Have you heard or read media reports about that in your state?

We can cite more examples, but once again, let’s review the list of tax arenas that need cutting now: payroll, income, sales, excise, dividends, capital gains, inheritance. Yes, each of us can stimulate our personal economy by taking action now “cold turkey” to rein in personal consumer spending, increase personal savings and pay down existing personal debt.

And, we can help each other and our country by insisting that government at all levels immediately go on a diet. Why? Because government is “obese.” There are two aspects to the diet required for government: shedding spending and intake reduction of taxes.

“Shedding” requires government to suspend new programs, drop existing programs and cut spending on retained programs.

“Intake Reduction” requires government to do just that. Cut, drop and suspend “core” taxes. Immediately, the feds can start by cutting payroll taxes; and, each state in these United States can start by cutting gasoline taxes.

This would indeed be a better stimulus.