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Politics : View from the Center and Left

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To: epicure who wrote (103823)	2/11/2009 2:28:00 PM
From: slacker711	Read Replies (2) of 541897

There are probably other ways to attack the issue, but I'm not sure any of them are better than the dem choices- they would merely represent a different host of causes that we could throw money at immediately- and as a host of causes go, these aren't so bad. What would you prefer to swap out for something else? Much of the expansion of the social safety net does act as stimulus spending, but everything isnt equal. The expansion of welfare and food stamps will translate into increased consumer spending on a nearly dollar for dollar basis. OTOH, the provisions for subsidizing COBRA will have much less of an impact. A substantial portion of that will be going to those who could have afforded COBRA anyway or those who would have gone without or found a cheaper option (single males under 40). That surplus spending ends up in the hands of the health insurance industry and I doubt that the velocity of money is particularly high for those dollars. The Pell grants would definitely be out as well. There are billions in spending for things like "improving the criminal justice system" and community policing. Other expenditures that are unlikely to act as the best form of stimulus are the billions for clean water projects (which take too long) and national park maintenance. I also hate the idea that we are rushing through long-term projects. A national energy grid might be a great idea, but we are deciding on it in a space of two months....and most of the money wont be spent for years. There is no reason that we cant have a normal debate about the investment projects that arent going to impact spending until 2010 anyway. FWIW, I would cap the tax cuts that are in the bill. There is no reason to give $1000 back to the well off. It is a terrible form of stimulus. How would I replace these expenditures? The way I think of short-term stimulus is that we should be trying to accelerate spending for projects that would take place anyway. There seems to be a complete lack of military spending in these bills. There has to be billions in projects that could be done now while dropping off spending in the out years. Note that I'm not looking to increase the total expenditures on the military...just accelerate existing projects. I would look for this in the private sector as well. There are many companies with billions on their balance sheets. Tax credits towards R&D or capex increases should bring forward spending by those companies with healthy balance sheets. A tax holiday that allows companies to bring back money parked overseas seems like a decent idea as well. It would never work politically, but this should really be three different bills. A bill for increased spending on the social safety net, a bill on short-term stimulus spending (shovel ready projects) and a bill on long-term investments in infrastructure. We could then analyze each of the expenditures to get the best bang for the buck instead of this mish mash of spending that will cause tens of billions to be wasted. Slacker

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