In just a matter of weeks, Congress in February passed a bipartisan “economic stimulus package” featuring tax rebates to spark the badly sagging U.S. economy. The one-time tax break is a very short-term fix, if that. The bigger, long-term issue is America’s eroding stature in the global marketplace.

So what’s really needed is an intellectual stimulus package — something to re-invigorate the nation’s imagination, inquisitiveness and experimentation. Giving some tax money back is nice but not enough to accomplish this. No, what we need is for government to give some liberty back. Don’t just soften the tax bite. Curtail the stifling influence of Big Brother the censor.

Here’s my suggested start for a 2008 intellectual stimulus package:

1. Accord free expression to students. Correct the uncertainty created by recent Supreme Court rulings; extend clear and reasonable freedom-of-expression rights to students at public high schools and colleges.

2. Fully protect truthful advertising. Dump the commercial speech doctrine that treats sponsored messages as second class under the First Amendment. Get government out of the buiness of trying to engineer what we hear from consumer-products companies.

3. Open up political discourse. Repeal all the arbitrary restrictions on political expenditures by individuals or corporations.

4. Stop dictating broadcast content. A governmental system for orderly allotment of the broadcast spectrum is one thing. But attempting to engineer and censor content is something else. It’s stifling, counter-productive, and insulting.

5. Pass a national shield law for journalists. Government is too tempted to issue subpoenas to the news media, treating the “fourth estate” like an arm of law enforcement.