Absolutely necessary, but too few tax cuts
Absolutely necessary, but too little spending
Not necessary, and it won't help
Not necessary, but it may help
It will make everything worse
I have no idea, I don't really understand economics
Other
Other…absolutely necessary if you want to avoid a potential depression. The spending is not nearly enough, but that won’t be the case for long. $1 trillion in new treasuries were issued in fiscal year 2008. There will be $2-3 trillion issued in FY 2009. There are expectations that if that isn’t enough then there will be another $3-4 trillion issued in FY 2010. It’s hard to see how we don’t have a public debt of over $15 trillion by FY 2011… which would be a 50% increase in about 3 years. That will probably inflate us out of this current crisis; if not, then they will just spend more during the last 2 years of Obama’s term. It will put America in a worse position in the long run.
The idea behind these things is that consumer spending has fallen off; people are hoarding money. So the government should step in and makeup the difference with deficit spending, basically borrowing from the future to smooth out spending and the economy in general, thereby avoiding unnecessary negative fluctuations in GDP and consumption. But in order for this to be a sound policy, the spending that has been borrowed from the future must be paid back at some point in the future; the increase in the national debt from the stimulus must be erased.
In 1930 the debt to GDP ratio was 20%. After the stimulus of the 30s it was about 50% by 1940. 5 years later, after WW2, it was close to 120%. It was back below 100% by 1950, and to about 55% by 1960, below 40% by 1970, and to nearly 30% by 1980. In other words, what was borrowed was paid off, with huge help from the new Bretton Woods global monetary system that greatly benefited the US (along with the fact that after WW2 we weren’t in ruins like much of Eurasia).
Well, today the debt to GDP ratio stands at 75%, up from 65% just a couple of years ago. It’s anybody’s guess as to what the ratio will be in 4 years. We might reach the WW2 level of 120% during the next presidential term (12-16, although by 2012 isn't impossible.)
Think of a stimulus like a person withdrawing money from their retirement account to smooth out their consumption during a perceived temporary setback. It’s fine if they pay the money back during better times (plus the lost interest, of course). But if they don’t and they just say, “don’t worry about it, I owe it to myself” then they work for the federal government and it's not their money that they're talking about, it's yours.
With the added social programs that are probably mandatory spending, it will now likely cost in excess of another $200 billion added to each upcoming years budgets!
This isn't a stimulus package. It's a Kill the American Dream and Kill Freedom package.
Soon we may seen European style Socialism, or worse yet, Marxism.
We're already part way there.
Not gonna happen. Marxism is a conversation piece, even in China.
More like salt packing the wound with salt.
I agree that we need to decrease our Debt to GDP level, but that should be done as soon as this credit crisis is resolved....the world cannot afford the consequences of a global fiscal meltdown....
Yes we can. It's too late not to.
I see the stimulus (and the bailout) as big bets. Do we do nothing while we wait out the recession, or do we try to pull ourselves out by our bootstraps, risking that we'll end up somewhere worse? I don't think anyone voted for Obama to do nothing, so I guess we voted for big bets.
I would have liked to see more emphasis on infrastructure, but the goulash produced by Congress had just enough votes to make it through, so it is hard to see how a better stimulus package could have been produced.
What I really don't understand is more bailout (coming soon, I think). I have the feeling that the major banks are so deep in the hole that nothing is going to pull them out. Also, with the bonus fiasco, my trust level in the banks dropped from zero to big negatives. If moving credit along is the big issue, the government should set up a brand-spanking-new bank to keep things moving. At least we would know then that the money was actually being used, undoubtably far from ideal, but better than fat bonuses and bottomless pits.
If I looked it up correctly, there are approximately 140 million people that currently have jobs in the US
If 136 million people lose their jobs by 2012, I seriously doubt Obama will come out and say, "well, at least I saved 4 million".
sheez.
doobs indulged in a bit of hyperbole, but he was emphasizing how hard it is to measure the success/failure of the promise to "save" jobs in a contracting economy. IMO he has a point.
Gregory Mankiw makes the same point here.
Via Reason.
He's a lot smarter than I am, so he made the point much more effectively. He's right, it's "an act of political genius."
Even if things get much, much worse, the President can say that there would have been 4 million fewer jobs without the stimulus.
So he gave us a non-measurable metric. A clear and specific benchmark, without any way of ever knowing whether it has been reached.
I got the overexagerrated hyperbole.
My point is that if many jobs are lost, I don't think Obama will come out bragging about the few he might think he helped save/create.
The only way I see Obama coming out and bragging about 4 million jobs he saves/creates is if the economy somehow gets some stability or does a turnaround.
IMO, it's a moot point.
That would surprise me too, but all doobs asked was "would Obama receive credit?" That goes to public perception, not self-promotion.
The U.S. has the highest tax rates on businesses out of the entire industrialized world. If we cut the taxes on businesses it will be more profitable to business here, or at least less expensive to. That's about as good an incentive as we'd be able to get. But taxes need to be cut across the board. There's just no way to target companies who want to hire American workers and separate them from the ones who don't because then all companies do is say "I need tax breaks because I'm about to go hire overseas", whether they really mean it or not.
While I support green energy the economic reality of the situation is that the consumer demand isn't there because green energy is not cost compe ive. If it were, it would have all taken care of itself long ago. We should be spending money on things that maximize the percentage of cost that ends up going towards labor. That ratio on green energy projects is not very high since the technology itself is so expensive.Investing in green energy is not only going to save our planet -- which is closer to collapse than people seem to think -- it should also be a way of creating jobs. New energy projects require engineers, construction workers, urban planners, administrative people, etc.
It's an old theory, but we just tried it a year or so ago with those $600 checks and it didn't work. The only purpose the tax cuts to individuals serve is to help in selling the whole package to the public. Give the masses their $500 and they won't bother to look at the hundreds of billions being spent elsewhere.I agree the tax cuts for individuals won't do much - but this is an old theory of economics - if you give people money they'll spend it and stimulate our economy.
yeah, I guess so. I'm thinking if things go right, Obama will be the one to say, "look, it worked."
If not, I guess it'll be Rush and Sean to remind everyone of the 4 million job promise.
LOL at how the Obama admin. is going after this dude on CNBC.
Hopefully we are one day closer to the r.
Rick Santelli. The guy who freaked out on TV about mortgage relief.
What's a spoxman?
Feb 20 2009, 4:18 pm by Marc Ambinder The White House Encourages Santelli, On Purpose
This is very simple. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs went out of his way today to blast CNBC's Rick Santelli for his "rant" yesterday against Obama's mortgage assistance plan. The early press reaction asks why the White House would give Santelli free publicity and elevate him to Official status? Easy: they'd rather the opposition be identified with Santelli and stock brokers than with, say, a Joe the Plumber type (but who actually is a plumber and who has serious real reservations about the mortgage plan). Let opponents of the plan get into a tizzy, and let them have Santelli -- whose regular guy creds have to be established -- as their spoxman.
http://www.spoxman.net/
http://www.joemonster.org/bojownik/spoxman
WTF! Is google a failure or only my search terms?
Just drove in from Dallas this evening. Along the way I noticed the incredible amount of commerce and the flow of goods and services along the way. It seems we got a great return on that infrastructure. The interstate system (originally to rapidly move military resources when the commies invaded) was a great government (socialist!) investment. I am optimistic!
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