I can find "many economists" that will tell us anything you, or I, want to hear.
For one thing, this essentiall IS a "$500 check," only distributed over a whole year. I'm not unhappy with the idea--any money kept in the private sector is a plus--but this amount, targeted at the non-investment community, isn't going to generate a lot of real economic growth.
You can follow the money to figure out any real stimulus effect. How much will be invested? How much will be spent on services or locally-manufactured products (i.e. in the U.S.)? How much will be spent on things made overseas? Pretty vague.
However, if this tax cut was actually designed as a mechanism for buying a lot of votes relatively cheaply, it's perfect.
Tax cuts work when they keep as much money as possible in the private sector, and do so where the most new wealth is generated.
It's unpleasant for liberals that this happens to be at the top end of the income scale, but if you'd sit down and think about it logically, the most new wealth will always be generated at the top of the income scale. That's how you GET into that category. It's like saying the least wealth generated is at the bottom of the income scale. Note that while the categories remain the same, the people in them change constantly.
Off Topic » in reply to You're surprisingly dismissive of tax cuts
re: tax cuts
The whole thread (44 posts)
- I do not understand something about *this* recession...[big surprise]
- There was well over 200 billion worth of tax cuts in that stimulus package
- Once the markers were called...
- (targeted) government spending produces more jobs than tax cuts.
- re: I do not understand something about *this* recession
- Money
- Because this time, the tax cut came first.