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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (103106)	2/4/2009 2:08:19 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 543802

by wasteful spending on the expense side So now we want more? wasteful tax cuts on the revenue side Tax cuts aren't wasteful. They let people keep more of their own money, the money doesn't get used up. Government spending can be wasteful, can be pretty neutral, or can be a great idea, depending on what its being spent on. Well I suppose they can be wasteful, if they are targeted tax cuts, and if the targeting creates perverse incentives. Arguably all the tax benefits for mortgages and capital gains from home price appreciation fit this category, another candidate is tax breaks for corn based ethanol. But most of the tax breaks where broad based tax cuts, reducing the marginal rates. Tax cuts can contribute to increased deficits, and that can cause problems, but the answer to that isn't to increase deficits even more. lack of investment in infrastructure Do you have any information at all to back up that contention? Esp. compared to the spending in this area from previous presidents. Generally Bush and congress working together showered money all over the place. and lax oversite in the financial markets I might not agree with you here, but lets assume your right. What does spending an extra trillion have to do with increasing oversight in the financial markets. The damage done was severe and will be expensive to fix. What's to say the stimulus package won't cause more damage, rather than fixing anything? In broad terms its mostly more of the same.