Out here in, purple and dreadfully confused SW Pennsylvania we’ve got a hot congressional race (Jason Altmire versus I Haven’t A Clue Who Because He’s Not Advertising Yet) and a hot senate race (Joe Sestak versus Pat Toomey) and one of the things that keeps coming up in the ads against Sestak and Altmire (whether by their opponents or 527s) is that they voted for “Obama’s $700b Stimulus.”
The ads against Altmire are quite specific in its breathless exclamation that Altmire voted for the stimulus “but the jobless rate in Pennsylvania grew after that” as if in an effort to confuse low-information voters into believing that the stimulus package was meant to halt any and all job losses in their tracks immediately, and failed completely, which isn’t accurate.
What I’ve never quite figured out, though, is what exactly Pat Toomey and the Chamber of Commerce and People United To Put Ugly Caricatures of Nancy Pelosi in Ads Against Every Democrat Running for a House Seat Anywhere In America think should have been done instead of the stimulus.
And if their purported problem with the stimulus is that it didn’t instantly reverse job losses, if there hadn’t been a stimulus, wouldn’t they now be running ads saying “Jason Altmire and Nancy Pelosi did nothing for the economy while jobs disappeared!”? It all seems a little damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
Is there something specific that these people wanted rather than the stimulus package, or is this just cynical party of no, “if Obama (and/or Pelosi) is for it, it must be wrong” naysaying to try to capture on the national unease with the economy to sweep Republicans back into power?
About the only idea for improving the economy you have heard from the Republicans is they want to cut taxes, specifically for businesses and the rich. So instead of a stimulus they would of tried to pass a massive tax cut, hoping that this would promote business to hire more people since they would get to keep more of their own money. How realistic this is, I won’t comment on.
I think their argument, rightly or wrongly, that the stimulus didn’t have any positive effect on the economy at all. In other words, they say, if there were no stimulus package, the economy would be the same as it is now with no stimulus (but the budget would be 700b smaller). So, yes, I don’t think they’re saying “They did the stimulus instead of x”, just that “They did the stimulus when they shouldn’t have.”
I think that’s a pretty dicey proposition, though, Cap. Just today Robert Samuelson ran a piece in which he quotes Blinder and Moody’s Analytics in which they estimating that unemployment would have hit 16 percent instead of 9.6%, GDP would have dropped 12% instead of 4%, and job loss would have been 16.6 million instead of 8.4 million.
Like Samuelson, I could dispute those numbers for exactness. But I don’t think I’d argue with them about the impact of such. It is very likely that without such we’d be in worse shape and have gone through much worse than we have.
Mostly the problem is that it’s just so easy to paint the stimulus as a failure.
Consider the infamous 8% unemployment quote. Not only did the economy perform far worse than was promised if we did the stimulus, it performed even worse than what was claimed if we didn’t do the stimulus. There are arguments for the stimulus anyway, but it’s really hard to believe in something that miserably failed to live up to what it was sold as
Most people didn’t see much from the stimulus. The most visible aspect of it focused on ‘shovel ready’ projects. In other words, the stimulus paid for projects that were already planned, paid for, and would happen even without the stimulus. For most people, the only indication of the stimulus they saw was a few new signs at road construction sites that already existed anyway. So a lot of people are wondering where the hell the money went since they see nothing from it. At least with FDR we got some nice parks…
The stimulus was loaded with pork and spoils to the democrat victors. When the public sees groups aligned with one political party getting handouts because of this, it looks bad. Infrastructure is important, but is it REALLY an immediate kick start to the economy? Same with green energy, it may or may not be a good thing for government funds, but how does this help the economy in the short term which is what the stimulus should have done. Instead, it looks like a payoff to mostly democrat businesses. Since the public saw democrats enriching their supporters, but did not see any other immediate benefit as I mentioned above, things don’t look good.
Now I’m not anti-stimulus, although I do think the stimulus was far less effective than it could have been due to my third point up there. But it’s just so damned easy to dismiss the stimulus as a massive waste of money that did nothing except buy off a few voters for Democrats. The argument against that boils down to ‘Well, things could have been worse…’ True. But things could have been better too. And they aren’t, even though Democrats specifically told us they would be…
They would have preferred a 1930s Mellonite liquidationist approach to everything. Mellon was the Treasury Secretary who
He advised Herbert Hoover to “liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate farmers, liquidate real estate… it will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people will pick up from less competent people.”
It didn’t work out too well.
The reason for using the word “stimulus”[URL=“Andrew Mellon - Wikipedia”] is that the word “stimulus” tests as absolutely toxic in focus groups. Low information voters, who are the majority of Americans, associate the word “stimulus” with the bank/AIG/car company/financial system bailouts. To the vast majority of voters it’s all “stimulus.”
Came in to say what Dastardly said, without the nifty cite.
More specifically, I think most Americans who are against the stimulus would have liked to for the government to do nothing thus cutting the strings on the golden parachutes of those fat cats on Wall Street. With all the Fat Cats broke this would either give all the hardworking Americans on Main Street a fair shake or at least fulfill their need for schadenfreude.
BTW, the Obama stimulus included the Biggest Tax Cut EVER !!!
Let me repeat that: The Obama stimulus included the [size=“6”]Biggest Tax Cut EVER !!![/SIZE]
Many sober economists think the stimulus would have been more effective had it emphasized tax cuts less, but tax cuts were featured in deference to the [del]cynical turds that think voters are very stupid[/del] Party that Loves America So Very Very Much.
(I’m afraid I won’t be able to participate in this thread much. I’m trying to cut down on blood pressure meds.)
One of the people who claim to Love America So Very Very Much will show up to demand a cite, so let me answer them now. Use Google. Federal budgets are a matter of public record and even the Fox mouthpiece WSJ admits that Obama’s stimulus includes the biggest tax cut ever.
Bush’s 2004 tax cut, providing $115 billion per year in tax reduction, is now in 2nd place. Obama’s cut provides $141 billion per year. Moreover, Obama’s cut is aimed at the middle class, while Bush’s cut was aimed at the super-rich.
Have I mentioned that there is a pathetic information gap in America’s political discourse?
Septimus - Where can I get a cite on that? NOT to be a smart-ass, but because I’d really like to know, so I can use it in discussions w/some of my anti-stimulus co-workers.
edited to add: Wow, you answered my question before I finished typing it! Thanks!
Sorry I didn’t provide any specific links. My Google-fu is poor, as well as knowledge of which links would be considered more authoritative. But here are a few:
When the People who Really Really Love America So Very Very Much show up, they’ll point out that Obama’s cuts were for only two years, but those of The Great Decider were for several years, so larger over their total span.
But that’s rather the point, isn’t it? Stimulus of adrenaline or sugar is used for short-term emergencies. The Republican Doctrine of Permanent Deficits is not Keynesian at all, but rather a way to make Americans hate government.
Hoover did not listen to Mellon, he kept campaigning for high wages and high prices. This worsened the Depression. Mellon was one of the architects of the response to the Depression of 1921 and the success of that response led to the roaring 20s. Hoover’s spending and high wage response led to the Great Depression. Mellon was right and Hoover was wrong.
To be fair, Bush’s tax cuts were aimed at everyone (including the super rich). I know this flies in the face of the anti-Bush crowd that dominates this board. From today’s WaPo
Bush’s tax cuts may have included everyone, but only because he needed political cover. The real statement would be they BENEFITTED the uber rich more than anyone else.
Do you have any info on what different tax cuts really look like after removing the people who have a zero or negative tax liability? This should be subtracted from any number that anyone calls a tax cut.
The dollar estimates of tax cuts are simply the difference (Y - X) where X and Y are I.R.S. income estimates with and without the tax cut legislation. Deliberate tricks and misestimations can be introduced, but that doesn’t seem to be the point you’re making.
Since the top 1% is paying something like 40% of all income taxes collected (while earning only something like 23% of the gross income), who did you think was going to benefit?
(I couldn’t find 2009 tax year numbers, but here’s an earlier year).
The tax cuts benefited everyone who paid taxes. I know the hardcore lefties here think that he was pure evil, his motives weren’t pure, etc, but the fact remains that his tax cuts benefited a lot more Americans than the uber rich.
