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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: michael97123 who wrote (158420)	2/23/2005 11:17:15 AM
From: jttmab	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

I am Larry Kudlow to your Paul Krugman. If Paul Krugman told you that, he's lying. I have bought into capital creationism/supply side hook, line, not always sinker though. That's been pretty obvious. 2/3 of the economy is consumer driven. I'm not aware of any economist that disagrees with that. [Excepting the dork, that says...no...it's 66.15% of the economy]. I'm pretty sure that every economist agrees that if consumers spend more, then it helps the economy. I don't think an MBA is required for that conclusion. Generally speaking, if you can put more money in the consumers pocket, they will spend more money. Another "Duh". However, consumers can spend more without having any more money. It's called debt. And consumers can have more money, but not spend it. Watch the MN Consumer Survey. If I were you, I'd let Larry Kudlow speak for himself. I don't expect that Larry Kudlow would agree that bundles of $20 bills sent to Iraq to pay Iraqi police does much to help the US economy. If you think it does, I'd like to hear the argument for it. Again in general, I would agree that deficit spending and tax decreases can stimulate the economy. "Can", but don't necessarily do. My consumer spending didn't change as a result of the tax decreases and I don't expect that very many people in my tax bracket or higher changed there spending as a result of the tax changes. So the question becomes where did the tax decreases and deficit spending go and in how many billions. Then compare that to the billions generated through refinancing and home sales driven by lower interest rates and compare those against the increased exports [in $B] driven by the lower value of the $US. For instance, i thought there should have been a FICA holiday on first $X of income for low earners who werent eligible for tax cuts because they paid no taxes. That doesn't help the SS Trust Fund issue much. For all practicle purposes, you don't have to do anything with taxes, payroll or income to send money to consumers. If you're objective is to give consumers money to spend, for all it matters, you could have Congress declare a President's Day Gift to Americans and send every household a check for $x. jttmab