And I’m pleased that your pleasing me pleases you. That’s as it should be.
Tax cuts are guaranteed to create new jobs: yacht-deck-scrubbers, gold-bar-polishers, human furniture…
Pretty much anything involving the word ‘green’ can be viewed as a buy off for an industry that, mostly, supports democrats. They have little, if any, benefit in the short term. There may be a long term benefit, but the stimulus was supposed to be about helping in the short term. For example, several billion went to researching clean coal. It will take years, if not decades, for the results of the research that paid for to hit the market. Once it does hit the market, it’s doubtful it’ll actually boost the economy much. The entire point of that program is about carbon rather than economics. Similarly guidelines designed to promote electric or hybrid cars aren’t really going to affect the economy for years, if they have much effect at all since that isn’t the primary goal.
Some of the money was spent on Homeland Security issues. Which may or may not be needed, but why was it in the stimulus? The connection between boosting the economy and homeland security spending is rather vague, at best.
Infrastructure upgrades are another spot. They do pay for jobs, but either the jobs were planned and paid for already without the stimulus or it will take years to go through the process before they’re created. In the short term, it does nothing for the economy really. For example, eight billion was allocated to high speed rail projects. Coincidentally, Reid - the guy who helped write the stimulus - is a big proponent of a high speed rail line between LA and Las Vegas. It’s well over a year later, how many high speed rail lines do we have that were created due to the stimulus?
Billions were given to the states to spend as they thought was needed. A few limits were placed on it, like the states couldn’t build golf courses with it. However, do you honestly think all fifty state Governors and Legislatures spent the money on economic recovery rather than pork? Really? And yes, I know that includes Republican controlled states, but it was the Democrat stimulus that gave them the money to waste.
Or to quote what the San Francisco Chronicle, hardly a bastion of hard core right wing thought, said:
“Is $200 million to rehabilitate the National Mall a crucial way to stimulate the U.S. economy? How about $276 million to fix the computer systems at the State Department? And what about $650 million to repair dilapidated Forest Service facilities?”
I dunno if those spending points went through or not, the article was written before the stimulus passed, but the fact they were even inserted in the first place says something.
Now I’m not saying all of this is a bad use of money. Infrastructure upgrades are needed. There’s a fair argument that spending for green energy is a good idea. Maybe homeland security did need more money. Etc. But the point is, these are not stimulus issues. They had nothing to do with boosting the economy. People watched Democrats “never let a serious crisis go to waste” and push their own agendas in a bill that was SUPPOSED to be all about the short term economy. People see that over a year later that the economy not only still sucks, but it’s even worse than what the Democrats claimed it’d be if they did nothing at all. Is it any wonder some people think those two things might be related and the stimulus the Democrats passed was bad?
Also note: I realize that, as a percentage, these sorts of things were a pretty small part of the stimulus. However, they add up to billions in spending. Watching one party spend billions on it’s pet projects, while flat out lying by claiming this crap will help the economy, tends to leave an impression on people.
No. FedEx and UPS would quite likely focus on mail delivery between densely populated areas, to the neglect of less profitable rural deliveries. (You know, just how airlines offer very cheap fares between hubs due to volume, and if you happen to live in Bozeman, Klamath Falls, or Eau Clare, you get charged an arm and a leg for even a short flight.) That would dump all the unprofitable routes onto the USPS, which is a terrible idea. Shoot, UPS and FedEx already hand off some packages for the USPS to deliver because they don’t want to send a driver out to Bumfrick, Flyovercountry.
Mail service deserves to be universal and reasonably low cost, and so it makes sense to have it regulated in the way it is.
If someone earns enough money to buy a yacht and decides to do so who the hell are you to tell him it’s morally wrong and take his money away? Rich people don’t stay rich by flushing their money down the toilet, they invest and create businesses that hire people. People who pay taxes.
Sure. I named three open positions, didn’t I?
Good post Godix.
As a gov contracting exec, I’m very familiar to where ARRA money went (as I was tasked to chase those deals by my CEO). A big piece of the DHS money went to build them a new HQ at the site of the former St Elizabeth’s, in SE DC. This project is rife with rigged deals, union buy-offs, and 8a/HUBZone preferences (all of which drive up the cost to the taxpayer, but all are Dem backers).
Not to say that DHS didn’t need a new HQ, they did - the NAC is pretty run down and not real convenient to get to, and the component HQs are a hodgepodge (Coasties in SW DC, TSA in Crystal City, FEMA… everwhere, etc). But programs like this are inevitably politicized and used as slush funds for the ruling party.
Note that there’s no question that the program will stimulate the economy and create jobs; the question is, will it be worth the long term debt and pain and interest expense.
First of all, tax cuts caused the increased deficits. There were no spending increases at the time that led to the increased deficits. If they were worried about deficits, they should have accompanied those tax cuts with spdning cuts but they didn’t so the tax cuts increased the deficit.
Second of all there are all sorts of areas where the government allocates capital better than the private sector simply because the private sector would never allocate capital to these areas.
Even if the USPS was the most efficient courier in the world, tehre would be room for more. Even if the public schools did as good a job as you could with their resources, there would be demand for private schools.
That sounds like an opinon. One that is not shared by the CBO which reported that the stimulus saved 3.3 million jobs and the consensus (not unanimous) among economists that teh stimulus helped stave off Great Depression II.
Yeah I know that the stimuluisn was supposed to keep unemployement below 8% (according to Christina Romer) but the economy was failing so fast that it was already past 8% by the time Obama signed the damn thing.
I realize taht this doesn’t mean that the stimulus was “worth it” but unemployment could be 12% right not instead of 9.5% and if we also failed to pass TARp, we could be staring at a second (laissez faire induced) great depression right now.
If I cut the taxes on the rich by 6% and the taxes on the middle class by 2% and finance the tax cuts with deficits (so that we will eventaully have to pay for those tax cuts) then we don’t really know who it helped until we figure out what relative tax rates will be used to pay back the debt we incur to pay for the tax cuts.
If the tax rates for the rich go back up 65 and the tax rates for the middle class go back up 2% then its more or less a wash (I don’t know if it will get us back to a balanced budget but thats another issue).
If the tax debt is repaid by across the board spending cuts then the tax cuts were much better for the rich than the middle class or the poor and ultimately helped the rich at the expense of social security and medicare (let face it, cutting these two entitlements are the only way to balance the budget without raising taxes).
If we increase taxes for the rich by 6% and keep the tax cuts for everyone else while cutting some spending, then yeah the middle probably are better off. But the LAST thing the rich wanted to do was institutionalize a tax cut for the rest of us in exchange for a temporary tax cut for themselves, which is why they feel so cheated by the expiration of the tax cuts on the rich, to the point where they have convinced Republicans to hold the middle class tax cuts hostage if they don’t get to keep their tax cuts.
No, they absolutely have a monopoly on first class mail but the monopoly comes with obligations to serve everyplace in the country for the same price.
I guess we could get rid of the USPS monopoly if we were willing get rid of the USPS mandate. The folks I know in the USPS administration seem to think this would be great for their bottom line but horrible for the country.
Well, then you should be glad to knwo that government contracting seems to be where we are cutting spending.
Because those people KNOW, in their heart of hearts, that they are smarter than the average person, and work REALLY hard.
They KNOW that soon, someday very soon, their ship will come in, and they will join the ranks of the super-rich; ranks that they are entitled to be in.
When this day comes, they will then enjoy the benefits of these tax cuts.
This is the “Joe-the-Plumber” syndrome. Many people feel that they’re just this close <holds thumb and finger really close together> to striking it rich through luck or hard work.
So, what is the argument, stimulating the ecomomy-wise, that investing in green energy is a good idea? Talking points on GE never seem to address two important things: how does GE create jobs? Unless there is significant more upkeep to it than traditional energy sources, the jobs “created” will only last as long as the short time it takes to transition from those other sources to GE. That doesn’t sound like a net gain. And secondly, will GE have any special regulations to it that will keep employers from immediately shipping these jobs overseas? And AFAIK China produces more solar panels than the rest of the world, so even if these new GE jobs didn’t leave US soil, how would our government pushing the investment in green tech improve our economy rather than theirs? Are they instead implying that folks in the US will see reductions to their energy costs? If so, is it realistic to think that cheaper sources of energy to manufacturers will result in actual savings to consumers?
Yes.
When Edison’s first power plant was running, the cost for 1 kilowatt-hour was about $5.00 – today you pay about 15 cents.
Tons of items that costs producers less to make has been passed on to consumers as lower prices. Electricity, food, clothes, computers, DVD players, cars, books, air travel, etc.
There are still a few things that still cost the same relative amount or have increased. College education, prostitutes, etc.
Beat me to it. This is exactly right.
If you have uniform pricing for postal service (or electricity distribution, or telephone usage, or anything along those lines that requires significant infrastructure to deliver the service), then the government is essentially taxing city service in order to subsidize rural areas. For all the red county complaints about SOSHULIZM, they seem to be just fine with government-run and -regulated services that leave them with much lower costs at the expense of the immoral, “leeching” big-city liberals.
“Socialism” is really bad and terrible and Obama-like, unless I’m personally benefiting from it. Then it’s okay.
You’re misunderstand what I was saying. It doesn’t and that was my entire point on why almost all green energy spending in the stimulus was a waste. My comment was meant as ‘I don’t hate this because I hate green energy spending, it just didn’t belong in the stimulus’
A white, Republican male. And a different name than stimulus.
It’s called sticking to one’s principles, even if they don’t directly benefit you. I realize it’s a diffcult concept.
My principles are not to bail out GM and Chrysler before working people. But I would abandon those principles to save the nations economy. Economic policy is not holy writ but a practical approach to a practical problem. The people who oppose the stimulus under the problems that we faced in 08 and 09 oppose it without a care for the millions that would have starved after an economic collapse because their principles are more important to them than those lives. I don’t consider those people to have respectable principles.
Especially when the principles in question are those of pure greed, like these so-called principles are. Which makes sticking to them when they aren’t profiting you stupid, not noble.