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