[lbo-talk] devolution

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Sun Jan 4 23:04:26 PST 2009


On Sun, 4 Jan 2009, Doug Henwood wrote:


> Bad news...this is just pissing the money away.
>
>> NEWS ALERT
>> from The Wall Street Journal
>>
>> Jan. 4, 2009
>>
>> President-elect Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are crafting a
>> plan to offer as much as $310 billion in tax cuts to individuals and
>> businesses, a move aimed at attracting Republican support for an
>> economic-stimulus package and prodding companies to create jobs.

Krugman commented on this with a nice apropos quote from Keynes:

<begin excerpt>

The biggest problem facing the Obama plan, however, is likely to be the

demand of many politicians for proof that the benefits of the proposed

public spending justify its costs -- a burden of proof never imposed on

proposals for tax cuts.

This is a problem with which Keynes was familiar: giving money away, he

pointed out, tends to be met with fewer objections than plans for

public investment "which, because they are not wholly wasteful, tend to

be judged on strict 'business' principles." What gets lost in such

discussions is the key argument for economic stimulus -- namely, that

under current conditions, a surge in public spending would employ

Americans who would otherwise be unemployed and money that would

otherwise be sitting idle, and put both to work producing something

useful.

<end excerpt>

Full column at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/opinion/05krugman.html

Michael



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