Friday, January 18, 2008

A drop in the bucket

Background: The Detroit News supports Congress and the President's attempt to craft a "stimulus" package for the economy. To "jumpstart" the economy, Washington needs to reduce the size of government, stop inflating the currency, and reduce spending. Borrowing more and calling it a stimulus is ridiculous.

Congress and the President are considering a $100 billion “stimulus” package to jumpstart our $14 TRILLION economy. The central planners in Washington must hold delusions of grandeur to believe tinkering with less than one percent of the economy will have much effect. That’s not even considering the fact that any program implemented will be paid with more borrowing. This stunt is nothing more than election year campaigning and Congress wants to appear to be doing something. For them image is everything. Unfortunately we need substance.

[Letter to the Editor - The Detroit News. Published 01/23/2008.]

2 comments:

RightMichigan.com said...

I am MORE than excited about the President's proposed tax rebate package. Lets not forget that the smaller rebate program in 2001 brought the nation out of a recession and created seven straight years of uninterrupted growth.

Anything that gets money out of Washington DC (or Lansing) and back into taxpayer pockets is a good thing.


--Nick
www.RightMichigan.com

Steve Sutton said...

The 2001 rebate program is not what moved the nation out of recession. The tax cuts of 2001 helped do that, but not the rebates. In fact, most of the rebates from 2001 were spent to reduce personal debt. Rebates simply borrow money from people in one sector of the economy and distribute it to people in another sector of the economy. Economic growth occurs when there is an increase in national income, not a redistribution of it. Rebates are an election year ploy that does absolutely nothing for the economy.

Also, let me point out that the benefits of the 2001 tax cuts were muted by the Bush spending spree that followed. If he’d actually been a fiscal conservative, we wouldn’t be facing a potential recession today.

As far as the statement that “anything that gets money out of Washington and back into taxpayer pockets is a good thing”, I would agree. Unfortunately, rebates simply transfer wealth and don’t remove any money from Washington. Only tax cuts and corresponding spending cuts keep money from Washington.