Here’s my idea to stimulate the economy: Give parents more tax breaks.

Maybe this sounds unnecessary. After all, we already have tax breaks for day care and some camps -- except for sleepovers, as we all learned through Secretary Tim Geithner’s tax troubles. (I’m waiting for someone to explain to me why a day camp is deductible and not a sleepover one. Perhaps we don’t want to provide an incentive to send kids away from home, or we see it as a luxury. I’m not convinced, and I didn’t even go to sleep-away camp. But I digress.)

Consider the stimulus checks sent in the spring. There’s been lots of talk about how little effect that money had because people saved it. Saved it? My guess is that wasn’t the case among most parents. We weren’t wasteful, but that money went into a trip to see relatives in Washington, D.C. But it wasn’t free.

There should be parent-friendly pieces of the next stimulus bill (and, yes, there will be one).

What about increasing the child care deduction? There are no public schools for infants or toddlers, and yet parents are provided woefully inadequate tax benefits for all the money they shell out for care. It’s a broken system.

What about a tax deduction for car seats? It’s crazy to me that we require parents by law to buy this equipment, but then provide no financial help. Perhaps we could create subsidies for car makers to include them in their vehicles. That way the car companies could benefit along with families.

What are your ideas?

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