Tax cuts--the dumbest economic "stimulus"

[eridani]

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2009/01/stimulus-is-for-suckers.html

How stupid do you have to be to prefer a one time mortgage payment or debt reduction to an infrastructure rebuilding job that will enable you to pay your mortgage every month? IMO, we just don't have the money to waste on anything but the top four.

In bang for the buck order (stimulus to the economy for every dollar spent), the best ways are

$1.73--food stamps
$1.64--extending unemployment benefits
$1.59--infrastructure spending
$1.36--direct aid to states
$1.29--payroll (i.e Social Security and Medicare payment) tax holiday
$1.26--refundable tax rebate
$1.03--across the board tax cut
$1.02--nonrefundable tax rebate

The following ways of spending a dollar leave us FAR WORSE off--

$0.48--extending AMT patch
$0.37--making dividend and capital gains tax cuts permanent
$0.30--corporate tax cut
$0.29--making Bush income tax cuts permanent
$0.27--accelerated depreciateion

[watrwefitinfor]

1. There is one tax "cut" they absolutely need to make

and that is the tax on unemployment benefits. Shameful is what it is - taxing the piddly sums that are often not even enough for people to survive on.

Wat

[eridani]

2. Yes--it needs to be adjusted so that the only people who pay

--are those who hold high-paying jobs for at least 9 months out of a given year. If you are earning a decent salary most of the year, tax on unemployment isn't going to be a big deal. As it is, too many people trying to survive on just unemployment and not much more are being hurt.

[phantom power]

3. The GOP anti-govt / anti-tax meme has poisoned our future.

They infected so many people with this meme that even now, with govt services collapsing, an astonishing number of people think more tax cuts are the answer. Just... because! They're the answer, that's why!

There's a local sheriff here in AZ who has been in the news lately for refusing to purchase a bunch of speed-cameras for his district. His reason? "Because they are a revenue source for state!"

You see? If the govt makes money off of it, it must be bad!. Never mind that his own organization will get funding from it. Never mind that it will free his own force to do other more important things.. It funds the govt, and he's gonna stop that!

:banghead:

[BeFree]

5. Again

Different levels of government see things in different ways.
You would expect them to not compete with each other, but they do.
Its kinda nice to have them fighting over us, but that's still a sorry way to govern.

That's why the federal level expenditures are so important, as per the OP.
They compete with no one. Feds are in a league of their own.
Federal spending can accomplish mush, in short order, if spent wisely.

I once had a thread here about whether it helps the economy to spend lump sums on a few people,
or better to spread it out amongst a whole bunch of people.

Of course, spreading money out to many is a better help to the economy.
There are more poor people, so spending lump sums on the neediest will be better for the economy of the whole.

[Hawkowl]

4. Damn right!

Obama needs to put this myth which has bankrupted our country. Borrowing money from the Chinese to give money to corporations and people to stick in there mattresses because they have no confidence in the economy or can only get 1% interest rate of return is worse than useless.

Obama needs to come out with the explicit policy that Government knows how to better spend your tax dollars than Wall Street or corporations. Anything less and we rush headlong into the Great Bush Depression (Obama Depression by conservatives) of 2009.

[CoffeeCat]

7. What you said...

You're exactly right.

Hey, I'm grateful, if the President wants to send me a chunk of money. However, that money will do NOTHING. If the
intent of that money, is to give citizens a little boost or a tiny addition to their savings, during these hard times--then
that's fine.

However, that money will not stimulate the economy or make one bit of difference on a macroeconomic level. Look at what
happened to the last tax stimulus that Bush gave us. People socked it away. They didn't spend it on a flat panel or
new carpeting. They saw the train wreck coming and they were scared. This was months ago! People have gone from
scared to frickin terrified to spend a nickle.

Those dollars, as you said, will go straight into the Sealy Posteurpedic.

[sarcasmo]

6. Exactly, tax cuts will NOT help, we need freaking jobs.