bush sure seems to be having a tough time selling his recently proposed "economic stimulus" package. most people seem to be identifying it as a handout for the wealthy. npr's talk of the nation had an economists on who made an excellent saying that this plan is like "aunt mae's cold cure, take two table spoons of anything and your cold will be gone in a week". the cold will be gone in a week either way but you end up giving aunt mae credit for it.
paul krugman tears the plan to shreds, first pointing out it's value as a distraction from foreign policy then making clear how little will actually act to simulate the economy. out that of the enormous $600 billion price tag, half will go end the stock dividend taxation. this percentage seems even more disproportionate once he he makes clear that the majority will go to people making more than $200,000 a year.
the economist, on the other hand, seems to think that stimulus is something of a dubious effort. getting legislation through congress is such a slow process that it's almost impossible to get the timing right. on top of that it's hard to know that a certain action will have the desired outcome.
in fact the only person in favor of the plan seems to be dirk van dongen, president of the national association of wholesaler-distributors, one of the special intrests groups that lobbied for parts of the plan.
Posted by drewish at January 7, 2003 10:53 PMTrackBack URL for this entry:
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