Word: taxed
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...freaking out about today - and we should be - we can't afford to leverage tomorrow to build the infrastructure equivalent of buried banknotes, not when the deficit is a record $1.2 trillion and the debt a staggering $10.6 trillion. A depression would make both problems worse - tax revenues plunge when incomes plunge - but every public dollar we spend on depression avoidance also plunges us deeper into our hole. It's a bit galling to hear Republican leaders warn that Obama wants to spend money borrowed from our children when their own appetite for pork and tax breaks helped double...
...Just a Deal - a New Deal Obama hasn't yet released details of his plan, so the debate has so far focused on the overall dollar amount (liberals want more, conservatives less) and general makeup (liberals want fewer tax cuts, conservatives more) rather than specific strategies for priming the pump. But the clichés are true: God - or the devil - will be in the details...
...high-speed rail lines and subway stations tend to take more time to build than roads or repairs. And while a recent study calculated that the average dollar spent on infrastructure ricochets into $1.59 worth of short-term growth - a bit better than aid to states or broad-based tax cuts and a lot better than tax cuts for businesses or investors - increasing food-stamp or unemployment benefits packs even more bang for the buck...
...first element will be giving money to state and local governments to offset their shortfalls and prevent them from raising taxes, slashing services and downsizing public employees. Just about every economist wants this aid approved yesterday because just as public dollars can have a big multiplier effect, public cuts that are imminent in New York, California and Florida can have a negative multiplier effect. "You can't let the safety net unravel just when people need it most," says Len Burman, director of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. "A lot of states have been terribly irresponsible, but this probably...
...attached; otherwise, we'll repeat the bailout of the financial sector, which pocketed the federal handouts and kept doing whatever it pleased. Bailouts should be reserved for states and communities facing the most drastic contractions - and even those shouldn't be rewarded for frittering away surpluses on sunny-day tax cuts and race-to-the-bottom subsidies designed to lure out-of-state businesses. States shouldn't be rewarded for keeping their fiscal houses in order by stiffing Medicaid programs either...