The Ideal Stimulus Package
Catherine Rampell at EconoMix has compiled a number of economists' responses to the question I addressed earlier this week: how would you structure a $500 billion tax and spending package? Follow the link for responses from:
- Joseph Stiglitz, Columbia Business School
- Tyler Cowen, George Mason University
- Casey Mulligan, University of Chicago
- Andrew Samwick, Dartmouth
- Dean Baker, Center for Economic Policy Research
- Raj Chetty, University of California, Berkeley
- Mark Zandi, Moody’s Economy.com
- Nathaniel Keohane, Environmental Defense Fund
- Andrew Roth, Club for Growth
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congratulations
"it is to be able to stretch the taxpayers’ money further by getting a better price for its purchases because workers without jobs will work for less and owners of empty factories will charge less."
You do not want to position the government as a vulture but more the benevolent and chivalrous knight riding to the rescue. Creating long-term goodwill may be more valuable than short-term penny-pinching squeezes.
good suggestions
But the comment by Roth was just silly. With Big corporations losing lots of money in recession, cutting corporate income tax will hardly be much of a stimulus. The worse the economy gets, the smaller the tax cuts become
Taxpayers
Let's get real!
What taxpayer is ever going to pay for any of the bailouts or stimulus packages?
We are $10T in debt, and whatever gets allocated today to any of these programs will get paid for after the $10T are paid back. That will be after - let's just guess - 2099, if the planet survives.
...if the planet survives. I
...if the planet survives.
I think the plan is: the planet doesn't survive.