Tomorrow is “America Unchained” Day. The idea is for people to restrict their spending only to locally owned, independent business – eschewing national chains in favor of the metaphorical mom & pop operations in your community.

I am in complete agreement with this goal. I have written a lot about the desire to support your local bookstore over the big chains and most especially over Amazon.com and other, online only retailers.

Tampa Bay’s best independent bookstore (and a personal favorite of mine), Inkwood Books, is promoting the event. They claim that this one day, if strictly followed by every consumer in the two counties, would generate $73 million for the area, because spending at a locally owned business generates 3.5 times as much local economic activity as spending at a national chain.

But we intuitively already know this. Just like we know that supporting the arts with public monies actually results in a net economic gain for the community. But we still take the easy way out – when times get tough, households shop take their money to big box stores and local governments cut funding for the arts. And sadly, each of these actions do their small part to actually extend the tough times, making recessions last just a little bit longer for everyone.

Ok. I’m coming down off my soapbox for now.

But shop local tomorrow – and buy a book from your favorite independent bookstore, will ya?