Word: taxing
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...truly effective stimulus plan jolts the economy by lifting consumer confidence, since tax cuts can only increase economic activity when people spend, not save. A bigger plan would undoubtedly lead to more consumer confidence, especially if Obama had been brave enough to break the trillion-dollar mark. The flurry of news headlines and television news stories that would accompany such a big figure would show the public that Obama is serious about bringing up the economy, and hopefully motivate them to spend...
...Keynes was also right that there would be more sensible ways to spend it. There would also be less sensible ways to spend it. A trillion dollars' worth of bad ideas - sprawl-inducing highways and bridges to nowhere, ethanol plants and pipelines that accelerate global warming, tax breaks for overleveraged McMansion builders and burdensome new long-term federal entitlements - would be worse than mere waste. It would be smarter to buy every American an iPod, a set of Ginsu knives and 600 Subway foot-longs...
...would be smarter still to throw all that money at things we need to do anyway, which is the goal of Obama's upcoming American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan. It will include a mix of tax cuts, aid to beleaguered state and local governments, and spending to address needs ranging from food stamps to computerized health records to bridge repairs to broadband networks to energy-efficiency retrofits, all designed to save or create 3 million to 4 million jobs by the end of 2010. Obama has said speed is his top priority because the faster Washington injects cash into...
...zeros is already creating a feeding frenzy for the ages. Lobbyists for shoe companies, zoos, catfish farmers, mall owners, airlines, public broadcasters, car dealers and everyone else who can afford their retainers are lining up for a piece of the stimulus. States that embarked on raucous spending and tax-cutting sprees when they were flush are begging for bailouts now that they're broke. And politicians are dusting off their unfunded mobster museums, waterslides and other pet projects for rebranding as shovel-ready infrastructure investments. As Obama's aides scramble to assemble something effective and transformative as well as politically...
...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...