Stimulus Speed Racers
Scott Lilly makes a sharp but important point about congressional conservatives fretting that the stimulus plan isn’t sufficiently fast-acting:
It is unfortunate that government cannot turn on the spigots of job creation more rapidly, and that the damage already done to households and businesses cannot be repaired more quickly. Those were facts that Rep. Lewis and his House Republican colleagues should have weighed more thoughtfully when they blocked a smaller stimulus package in September. Had it been passed and implemented then, money would now be flowing and the precipitous drops in monthly employment that we are now enduring might have been significantly softened.
Right on. As I recall, at the time the objections were that the plan was (a) too big, and (b) too slow. Now, months later, the situation has gotten worse. And that necessitates a bigger stimulus. And because it’s bigger, it winds up having a slower payout time. And payout time aside, we’re necessarily talking about “later” since now we’re talking about passing something in February 2009 rather than September 2008. Now conservatives say we’re talking too big and too slow. But this could have been smaller and faster had they not been singing that same tune back in September.
25 Responses to “Stimulus Speed Racers”
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January 23rd, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Now it was never great to have Republicans running Congress back before 2006. But I swear to Crap these guys seem harder to deal with now. They’re like the 8-pound dog with a high-pitched bark that tries to take on any ol’ beast that walks by. People feel backed into a corner like that, rationality goes out the window.
Fuck these douchebags.
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:18 pm
They should be ignored. And in the House, they pretty much will be (sorry about that Boner). But the problem remains Harry Reid’s lack of a vertebral column.
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:54 pm
As the Daily Show has proved, it’s possible to take any Republican’s statement of fact or opinion and find a recent video clip of the same Republican stating the exact opposite.
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:55 pm
It is amusing that they are repeating the same “slowness” argument today that they were shilling a year ago. It is a red herring, an effort to steer the conversation to the “immediacy” of tax cuts. But I remember we already tried that with the 600 dollar checks from the IRS that went out quite slowly and were completely ineffective. They should be ignored. Sensible infrastructure investments will pay dividends in the form of improved commerce for years on end. Tax cuts will not pay divedends at all.
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Hey, give ME the fucking money and I’ll spend it this WEEKEND!
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Why, one starts to suspect that the Republican objections are pretextual.
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:53 pm
About those tax cuts, do we give them retroactively to all the people who have been losing their jobs? Or do we just apply those tax cuts to the bottom wage earners on the income their not getting?
Because, I think a tax cut from 10% to 5% on $0 earned is a great idea.
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:13 pm
In fairness to the Republicans, their “tax cut” is for low income: less than $33,000 — which I think is good.
I’m not sure about the tax cut for “small business” — how is that defined?
See http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090123/ap_on_go_co/republicans_economy
Also, we are in survival mode. We need people fed and clothed and with heat in their homes. How do we ensure a tax cut does not waste scarce resources on HDTVs?
On the other hand, the same questions apply to vaguely defined “stimulus” spending by the government.
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:20 pm
A tax cut on the first $33,000 of income does handle the corruption problem better than a stimulus package. IT goes to everyone so everyone shares equally.
The stimulus package, in contrast, will probably end up heavily favoring special interests and speculators. Real estate speculators constantly move to seize the value added from public infrastructure improvments (land appreciation due to new roads,etc.)
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Plus no voter will ever criticize you for giving them money. They will be extremely pissed, however, if you spend $1 Trillion of their tax dollars and their situation doesn’t measurably improve.
January 23rd, 2009 at 5:42 pm
Republican complaints about the slowness of the stimulus were based on the CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE. From
“Democrats tried to mitigate the impact of a Congressional Budget Office study that questioned administration claims that the money could be spent fast enough to reduce joblessness quickly.”
I think these issues should be debated based upon what is in the best interest of the average citizen. God knows I hate the Republicans and think they should be severely beaten for their past behavior. Nonetheless, I think the low income tax cut vice federal stimulus spending issue should be debated.
Matthew doesn’t seem to be doing that. So now I’m wondering if Matthew’s loyalty is to the citizens or to a political faction.
January 23rd, 2009 at 6:01 pm
Hmmm. It does occur to me that a tax cut may not have ANY stimulus effort on the economy — it may be sucked into a liquidity trap. Instead of spending the cash, people may stuff it under their mattress for coming hard times. The poor are less likely to do that than the rich (because their unmet needs are more pressing ) but the middle class and rich will get the tax cut on the first $33K as well.
January 23rd, 2009 at 7:08 pm
as a small business owner i have never consider taxes when i have hired ….only hire when i need, nothing more nothing less, thats capitalism baby!
January 24th, 2009 at 12:28 am
Don Williams,
Prescient prognosis on the liquidity trap. Others (Krugman et. al.) have made similar arguments. I like to point out that a year ago we had tax cuts, and they made no impact on the ecomony at all. Even hacks like Jim Cramer thought it was a worthless attempt at “stimulus”.
Perhaps we should be focusing the argument on “what can we build with a trillion dollars that would be useful in terms of generating commerce tomorrow and twenty years from now?”. Certainly there is room for debate. I think a combination of things are in order. Maybe a solar cell on every rooftop. Wouldn’t most of them be producing clean energy 20 years from now? What is the ROI on that? Too pie in the sky? What about bullet trains? Or subways plus bridge and highway repair, plus upgrades on freight rail congestion points? I mean really, I can think of over a trillion dollars worth of worthy, long term commerce generating projects off the top of my head.
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