The Truth About What Stimulates the Economy by Amy Bellinger  

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  tpaine on 2009-04-06 14:00:43.0 Sign in to report as inappropriate

  I can see the point you are trying to make, obviously a distorted one. You must be a statistician who voted for Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Zandi's testimony is related to Gross Domestic Product output, check out http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2008/10/pocketfull_of_m.html You left out the part where is says that a temporary across-the-board tax cut gives you more than 1-for-1 ($1.03 to be precise). Regarding the his comments on food stamps, that's debatable. Buying more food decreases supply and increases costs, so in the long term it's a wash. Zandi's testimony says "temporarily" increasing food stamps, a key word you conveniently left off. Your distortion of the permanent tax cuts fail to point out that you are not really "putting a dollar into" tax cuts. You are *not* taking a dollar away from family or business in the first place, and leaving that dollar in the hands of someone to use "magically" results in 29 or 30 cents of economic growth in the long term. That's *growth*, which results in more tax revenues for the government without destroying the means of generating wealth (which is what current Congressional spending will ultimately lead to if the current orgy of spending continues). Think about it. If you owe $25,000 on your Visa card, do you apply for a $30,000 Mastercard account to pay it off? Um, you could, but that's not sustainable over the long term and eventually you go bankrupt. Some debt is natural and good, like a home loan *you can afford*. Current spending is like my application for a $6 millon loan to buy an island. I might get away with it, but not for long as the payments will eventually come due. The problem with your version of "The Truth" is that something like 55% of voting Americans actually believe this drivel. Want to see where we are headed if this wasteful spending continues? Check out some news headlines from 1979 and you'll see. You probably weren't even born then... if you were, you didn't pay attention or have Alzheimer's. Shave some time off of widget development and go buy a basic economics book... you'll do the world (and yourself) a lot of good. I recommend "Economics in One Lesson" (http://www.amazon.com/Economics-One-Lesson-Shortest-Understand/dp/0517548232/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239044246&sr=8-1) Yes, and before you type your "Bush did it and we can too" response, just stop to consider whether trashing the nation permanently is worth the price we will pay? Our current path is like pulling out a gun and shooting someone during an argument. You might win the argument, but at what price?