They’re not unimpressive… But the stuff you mentioned amounts to about 7% of the stimulus package.
Look, this is clearly going to be a matter spin and interpretation. You get 38.6% because you’re only including the ‘appropriations’ part. If you consider it as part of the entire stimulus, it comes out to more like 15%. The 17% number I got may have come from the Senate version, and not the final compromise package, but either one is pretty close to what I said.
As for the tax cuts, many of those aren’t cuts at all, but refundable tax credits, which are more like government payments to low-income individuals. Progressives have learned to call them ‘tax cuts’ to placate small government conservatives, but they’re really not.
Hmm, in your recent post, you were carping because you felt that much of the spending in the stimulus bill wasn’t stimulative enough:
Now, what could be more stimulative or conducive to quick spending than “payments to low-income individuals” (who, I note, are for the most part low-income members of the working class who benefit from the expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit)? But no: when confronted with this nice piece of economic goose-booster, you hasten to change the subject by complaining that this particular type of tax-policy stimulus is one that you disapprove of on ideological grounds.
You’re really giving the impression here that you’re just scrambling to pelt the stimulus plan with every possible negative reaction that occurs to you off the top of your head, rather than expressing coherent and principled objections to it.
There is, even you may agree, a certain irony in your begrudging how much of the package is in tax cuts vs. spending. Yes, of the $787 (or 789.5 depending on the source) billion package less than 40% is spending on appropriations. That liberal bastion, Bloomberg.com, notes this:
Maybe we should look to an even more liberal source, the Wall Street Journal, to fact check your claim about so many of these being disguised “payments to low-income individuals”?
So how much of that fits your description? Maybe the broadening of the reach of the child tax credit. And that’s it. (And outside of tax cuts there is the expanded unemployment benefits, but that’s not being sold as tax cuts, so clearly is not what you were referring to.) The rest is solid tax cuts, again quoting the WSJ, “split roughly evenly between incentives for businesses and individuals” … you are George Will, aren’t you?
Sam Stone may be wrong on his numbers, but he is right on the point. Why is some of the money going to buy chairs and desks for Homeland Security? Under what possible point of view is that a proper use of money denoted and described as “economic stimulus”?
I have no patience with those who say “we’ll, it may not be stimulus, but it’s only X% of the Bill.” As far as I’m concerned, the percentage of the bill not going to stimulus should be 0%. Chairs for government asses certainly don’t fit that criterion on my planet, but YMMV.
PS - Since we’re asking for citations, I’d like one for the Keynes quote about digging holes. Not saying he didn’t say it … it’s just that I can find nothing but third-hand “quotations from memory” on the web.
Okay. Could you please provide us with a clear, specific and unambiguous criterion for distinguishing between “stimulus” activities and “non-stimulus” activities?
AFAICT, the allocation of funds for chairs and desks for DHS is part of the allocation to construct a new DHS headquarters. It seems pretty obvious that if they do construct a new building for DHS, they’ll need to put furniture in it.
So I presume that what you’re objecting to is the allocation of money to build the DHS headquarters in the first place. I certainly don’t know whether this is an optimal, necessary or even desirable project on which to spend government money, but I’m having trouble seeing why it would be automatically dismissed as “non-stimulus”.
The bill was a feeding frenzy of [del]public money[/del] future debt. What you listed here was a change in the welfare rules lowering the amount a couple can collect on from a salary of 8,000/year to a salary of $3000. It may appear to be a small change but its another step backward toward a welfare state. I suspect it will be added too as time passes until we will again have a growing dependent 2nd class. The reason it was ended in the first place was to end the vicious cycle of poverty that welfare breeds.
As opposed to the idea that people become independent and raise their children accordingly. Nobody is served by the vicious cycle of poverty, least of all the children who have no guidance and are condemned to repeat the process.
How exactly do you see an expanded child tax credit as “welfare rules”???
intention yes it would be nice if, out of $787 billion, every cent was money spent on what everyone completely agreed was pure stimulus. Live in the real world much?
How much tax, net, does a couple earning that much pay?
ISTM it isn’t really a tax if you are getting back more than you put in - more like a means-tested subsidy. Which is pretty close to a definition of “welfare” with a lower-case ‘w’.
See, there’s the problem. Not even the supporters of the “stimulus” package can pretend that a crapload of it is really for stimulus. Hence the objection to hiring people to dig and fill in holes. That spending will be a net drag on the economy, since it incurs future debt with no offsetting rise in productivity.
On the whole, therefore, the notion that this package pays a lot of people to dig us into a hole is a lot more apt than I like to think about. The guy filling in holes has to be paid for, eventually. If we don’t do what was being claimed - increasing productivity thru infrastructure spending - then we are merely postponing the crash, and making it worse when it happens.
Stratocaster is right - [ul][li]We have to do something[]This is something[]Therefore, we have to do it[/ul] is not a syllogism on which I would care to bet the future of the economy.[/li]
Regards,
Shodan
Well, gosh, when you put it like that, it certainly does seem rather stupid. If you put it like that, that is. But it isn’t like that, so it isn’t. See, its stuff like this which is why you guys never win any elections…
Stratocaster is right - [ul][li]We have to do something[]This is something[]Therefore, we have to do it[/ul] is not a syllogism on which I would care to bet the future of the economy.[/li][/QUOTE]
Why not? It’s the same formula your side used to justify the war in Iraq.
I know this has been said, but it is worth repeating, the poor will spend the money the fastest. The poor don’t have disposable income, so money will be spent on essentials. I know the Heritage Foundation doesn’t believe a person can be poor and possess a color TV, but rational people understand that this is the United States not Haiti and color TVs are often donated. People on the right seem to forget that 7 out of 10 households earn less than $55,000 a year and American households are drowning in debt. This unwavering ideological stance has become completely irrational. Would you let the neighbor’s house burn down and risk your own because the neighbor didn’t pay fire insurance?
The conditions that qualify for individuals to get the “additional child tax credit” (and get back more than they put in) are very restricted; specifically these cases would be excluded.
Kimstu, my thanks as always for the quote. I feared it might have been misinterpreted, and I see I am correct. What Keynes actually said was (emphasis mine)
I’m sure that everyone here can see the difference between that and what is currently proposed.
Also, while Keynes was a genius, I’m afraid I don’t see how borrowing money to build pyramids is a net gain. Yes, taking money out of savings is a net gain.
But if the Pharoah said to the peasants “Well, guys, I’ve borrowed a million dollars. I’m going to repay it with all the taxes you folks pay me. And I’m going to take all of that money and build a big pile of stones.” I doubt if the peasants cheered … after all, it’s their money going into a useless pile of stones.
Now maybe it’s because I’m just a simple reformed cowboy, but I don’t see any net gain in borrowing money from the peasants to build a pile of rocks. I say the peasants would have been much better off with the money in their pockets. Perhaps someone could fight my ignorance on that subject.
Except that in this instance, the peasants are dependent on piling rocks. We have a consumerist economy. I would that we didn’t, but it is what it is until we change it (and ourselves). Some of our economy is geared to producing necessities, and some is geared to the production of loud, shiny, and essentially useless crap.
You cannot choose to be divorced from the consumerist economy without assuming changes that most of us shrink from. Its like the old story of the gambler who noticed a friend playing at a card game that he knew was crooked. Why do you play at this table? he asked. Don’t you know its crooked? Sure, was the reply, but its the only game in town.