Ok. Why get rid of the nukes?
- Thread starter fish_surf
- Start date
nice.i agreei agreei agree with a lot of that. besides the idea there are millions of illegals on welfare is a myth. Look:
"MYTH: The Government Gives Social Security Benefits to ?Illegal? Aliens Who Have Never Contributed to the System
Cite as "AILA InfoNet Doc. No. 09021163 (posted Feb. 11, 2009)"
FACT: Contrary to what people think, undocumented workers are not (and have never been) eligible to claim social security benefits. Moreover, most undocumented workers will use a false social security number to prove work authorization, therefore paying money into a benefit system that they will never be eligible to use.
FACT: According to the Social Security Administration (SSA), undocumented immigrants "account for a major portion" of the billions of dollars paid into the Social Security system under names or social security numbers that don't match SSA records. As of October 2005, the reported earnings on which these payments are based-which are tracked through the SSA's Earnings Suspense File (ESF)-totaled $520 billion.
More mythbusting facts on this issue can be found in The Economic Impact of Immigration, a policy brief prepared by the Immigration Policy Center (IPC) and the Annenberg Political Fact Check."
http://www.aila.org/content/default.aspx?docid=27969
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TheTruthIs
Guest
i think if it were all him and democratic problems trust in the government being at an all time low would be one sided, but :
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126047343
people haven't seen much from republicans since obama got elected. when republicans pushed through their health care reform bill in 2006 dems helped out for example.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126047343
people haven't seen much from republicans since obama got elected. when republicans pushed through their health care reform bill in 2006 dems helped out for example.
i think if it were all him and democratic problems trust in the government being at an all time low would be one sided, but :
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126047343
people haven't seen much from republicans since obama got elected. when republicans pushed through their health care reform bill in 2006 dems helped out for example.
Grape, you know I like the charts. Stop! But what does this have to do with American jobs? Slap me if I missed it.
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TheTruthIs
Guest
Well the atomic bomb saved a lot of American lives.
we were also discussing government satisfaction numbers in terms of public views favorably vs. unfavorably. it all follows under the same larger umbrella. as far as jobs my friend mi amigo... you never answered the question or i missed it so i'll ask again... how much would you like him to spend to create/ save more jobs? i know you lean right so what figure is acceptable. you are talking government action towards job creation. so how much should be spent towards that end? how much more additional debt is acceptable to you?
so there it is. go ahead my friend.
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TheTruthIs
Guest
No, you don't need to be slapped.
September 7, 2009
Why the Stimulus Failed
Fiscal policy cannot exnihilate new demand
BRIAN RIEDL
Conservatives have correctly declared President Obama?s $787 billion ?stimulus? a flop. In a January report, White House economists predicted the bill would create (not merely save) 3.3 million jobs. Since then, 2.8 million jobs have been lost, pushing unemployment toward 10 percent.
Yet few have explained correctly why the stimulus failed. By blaming the slow pace of stimulus spending (even though it?s ahead of schedule), many conservatives have accepted the premise that government spending stimulates the economy. Their thinking implies that we should have spent much more by now.
History proves otherwise. In 1939, after a doubling of federal spending failed to relieve the Great Depression, Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau said that ?we have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. . . . After eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started . . . and an enormous debt to boot!? Japan made the same mistake in the 1990s (building the largest government debt in the industrial world), and the United States is making it today.
This repeated failure has nothing to do with the pace or type of spending. Rather, the problem is found in the oft-repeated Keynesian myth that deficit spending ?injects new dollars into the economy,? thereby increasing demand and spurring economic growth. According to this theory, government spending adds money to the economy, taxes remove money, and the budget deficit represents net new dollars injected. Therefore, it scarcely matters how the dollars are spent. John Maynard Keynes famously asserted that a government program paying people to dig and then refill ditches would provide new income for those workers to spend and circulate through the economy, creating even more jobs and income. Today, lawmakers cling to estimates by Mark Zandi of Economy.com that on average, $1 in new deficit spending expands the economy by roughly $1.50.
If that were true, the record $1.6 trillion in deficit spending over the past fiscal year would have already overheated the economy. Yet despite this spending, which is equal to fully 9 percent of GDP, the economy is expected to shrink by at least 3 percent this fiscal year. If the spending constitutes an injection of ?new money? into the economy, we may conclude that, without it, the economy would contract 12 percent ? hardly a plausible claim.
If $1.6 trillion in deficit spending failed to slow the economy?s slide, there?s no reason to believe that adding $185 billion ? the 2009 portion of the stimulus bill ? will suddenly do the trick. But if budget deficits of nearly $2 trillion are insufficient stimulus, how much would be enough? $3 trillion? $4 trillion?
This is no longer a theoretical exercise. The idea that increased deficit spending can cure recessions has been tested, and it has failed. If growing the economy were as simple as expanding government spending and deficits, then Italy, France, and Germany would be the global economic kings. And there would be no reason to stop at $787 billion: Congress could guarantee unlimited prosperity by endlessly borrowing and spending trillions of dollars.
The simple reason government spending fails to end recessions is that Congress does not have a vault of money waiting to be distributed. Every dollar Congress ?injects? into the economy must first be taxed or borrowed out of the economy. No new income, and therefore no new demand, is created. They are merely redistributed from one group of people to another. Congress cannot create new purchasing power out of thin air.
This is intuitively clear in the case of funding new spending with new taxes. Yet funding new spending with new borrowing is also pure redistribution, since the investors who lend Washington the money will have that much less to invest in the economy. The fact that borrowed funds (unlike taxes) must later be repaid by the government makes them no less of a zero-sum transfer today.
Even during recessions ? when total production falls, leaving people with less income to spend ? Congress cannot create new demand and income. Any government spending that increases production at factories and puts unemployed individuals to work will be financed by removing funds (and thus idling resources) elsewhere in the economy. This is true whether the unemployment rate is 5 percent or 50 percent.
For example, many lawmakers claim that every $1 billion in highway stimulus will create 47,576 new construction jobs. But Congress must first borrow that $1 billion out of the private economy, which will then lose a roughly equivalent number of jobs. As transportation-policy expert Ronald Utt has explained, ?the only way that $1 billion of new highway spending can create 47,576 new jobs is if the $1 billion appears out of nowhere as if it were manna from heaven.? Removing water from one end of a swimming pool and dumping it in the other end will not raise the overall water level. Similarly, moving dollars from one part of the economy to the other will not expand the economy. Not even in the short run.
Consider a simpler example. Under normal circumstances, a family might put its $1,000 savings in a certificate of deposit at the local bank. The bank would then lend that $1,000 to the local hardware store. This would have the effect of recycling that spending around the town, supporting local jobs. Now suppose that, induced by an offer of higher interest rates, the family instead buys a $1,000 government bond that funds the stimulus bill. Washington spends that $1,000 in a different town, creating jobs there instead. The stimulus bill has changed only the location of the spending.
The mistaken view of fiscal stimulus persists because we can easily see the people put to work with government funds. We don?t see the jobs that would have been created elsewhere in the economy with those same dollars had they not been lent to Washington.
In his 1848 essay ?What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen,? French economist Fr?d?ric Bastiat termed this the ?broken window? fallacy, in reference to a local myth that breaking windows would stimulate the economy by creating window-repair jobs. Today, the broken-window fallacy explains why thousands of new stimulus jobs are not improving the total employment picture.
Keynesian economists counter that redistribution can increase demand if the money is transferred from savers to spenders. Yet this ?idle savings? theory assumes that savings fall out of the economy, which clearly is not the case. Nearly all individuals and businesses invest their savings or put it in banks (which in turn invest it or lend it out) ? so the money is still being spent somewhere in the economy. Even in this recession, with tightened lending standards, banks are performing their traditional role of intermediating between those who have savings and those who need to borrow. They are not building extensive basement vaults to hoard cash.
Since the financial system transfers savings into investment spending, the only savings that drop out of the economy are those dollars literally hoarded in mattresses and safes ? and there is no evidence that this is occurring en masse. And even if individuals, businesses, and banks did distrust the financial system enough to hoard their dollars, why would they suddenly lend them to the government to finance a stimulus bill?
Once the idle-savings theory collapses, so does all the intellectual support for government spending as stimulus. If there are no idle savings to acquire, then the government is merely borrowing purchasing power from one part of the economy and moving it into another part of the economy. Washington becomes nothing more than a pricey middleman, redistributing existing demand.
Even foreign borrowing is no free lunch. Before China can lend us dollars, it must acquire them from us. This requires either attracting American investment or raising the Chinese trade surplus (and the American trade deficit). The balance of payments between America and other nations must eventually net out to zero, which means government spending funded from foreign borrowing is zero-sum.
I?ve purposely ignored the Federal Reserve, which actually can inject cash into the economy, but not in a way that constitutes stimulus. Congress can deficit-spend; Treasury can finance the deficit spending by issuing bonds; and the Federal Reserve can buy those bonds by printing money. Any economic boost is then due to the Federal Reserve?s actions, not the deficit spending ? and of course the Federal Reserve will have to raise interest rates, slowing the economy again, to bring the resulting inflation under control.
If government spending doesn?t cause economic growth, what does? Growth happens when more goods and services are produced, and the only true source of this is an expanding labor force combined with high productivity. High productivity in turn requires educated and motivated workers, advanced technology, adequate infrastructure, physical capital such as factories and tools, and the rule of law.
Government spending could boost long-run productivity through investments in education and infrastructure ? but only if politicians could target those investments better than the private sector would. And it turns out that politicians cannot outsmart the marketplace. Mountains of academic studies show that government spending generally reduces long-term productivity.
Furthermore, most government programs that could increase productivity don?t work fast enough to counteract a recession. Education spending cannot raise productivity until its student beneficiaries graduate and enter the work force. It can take more than a decade to build new highways and bridges.
The only policy proven to increase productivity in the short term is to lower tax rates and reduce regulation. Businesses can grow only through consistent investment and an expanding, skilled workforce. Cutting marginal tax rates promotes these conditions, by creating incentives to work, save, and invest.
It?s happened before. In 1981, President Reagan inherited an economy stagnating under the weight of 70 percent marginal income-tax rates. Under Reagan, the top rate fell to 28 percent, and the subsequent surge in investment and labor supply created the strongest 25-year economic boom in American history.
Such tax-rate reductions are superior to tax rebates designed to ?put money in people?s pockets.? Rebates ? like government spending ? simply redistribute existing dollars. They don?t increase productivity because they don?t change incentives: No one has to work, save, or invest more to get a tax rebate. The 2001 and 2008 rebates failed because Congress borrowed money from investors and foreigners and redistributed it to families. Not surprisingly, any new personal-consumption spending was matched by corresponding declines in investment spending and net exports, and the economy remained stagnant.
If conservatives wish to provide economic leadership, they must get this argument right. The stimulus is not failing because it is too small or because too much of it is being saved. It?s failing because Congress can only redistribute existing demand, not create new demand. This recession will eventually end. The more serious, long-term danger is that President Obama?s Europeanization of the economy will bring the same slow growth, stagnant wages, job losses, high taxes, and lack of competitiveness that have plagued Western Europe, leaving the United States at an ever-growing disadvantage with Asian countries not so afflicted.
To prevent this, conservatives and free marketeers will need to promote policies that support long-term prosperity. The first step will be articulating why big government does not bring economic growth.
Mr. Riedl is a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
that's they're. it's a contraction. in this case a combination of "they" and "are". there refers to a place like "over there."
yeah those tax breaks sure worked for bush boy where would we be without those amazing tax cuts?
oh...
wait... here:
"Research Dispels Bush Claims That Tax Cuts Create Jobs
by Haider Rizvi
NEW YORK - Despite considerable opposition from lawmakers, including some within his Republican party, President George W. Bush seems determined to push ahead with plans to introduce further cuts in taxes for the rich, continuing to assert that it would create more jobs for the poor.
But the findings of a new study suggest that Bush's claim on job creation is based more on political rhetoric than actual facts related to the nation's economic realities.
"It's a great sound bite that unfortunately does not hold true in the real world economy," say authors of the report, entitled, "Nothing to Be Thankful For: Tax Cuts and the Deteriorating U.S. Job Market."
Changes in tax policy suggest no evidence of their impact on job creation or destruction, according to the 22-page study released Tuesday by United for a Fair Economy (UFE), an independent group that tracks the growing economic divide between the nation's haves and have-nots.
Since 1950, significant tax increases and decreases have both been followed by job losses and job gains, say the researchers.
Based on statistical analysis of changes in tax polices and rates of job growth in the past 60 years, the report points out that tax reduction does, however, disproportionately lead to economic disparity between the rich and poor.
"No workers have really benefited from President Bush's tax policy," says Gloribell Mota, a bilingual education specialist at UFE. "But Blacks and Latinos have suffered disproportionately."
The study shows that African American unemployment remains about twice as high as that of White workers. Moreover, it indicates no sign of growth in quality jobs (defined as paying at least 16 dollars per hour and including health benefits and a pension plan) for workers from any racial background, including Whites.
Last year, one million people fell below the poverty line, a disproportionate number of them children, while the number of billionaires rose to 374, the study says, adding that the number of people living in poverty rose from 11.3 percent in 2000 to 12.7 percent in 2004.
The study also shows that the percentage of American workers benefiting from employment-based health insurance was down from 63 percent in 2000 to less than 60 percent in 2004. This despite the fact that U.S. workers are spending more than 1800 hours per year at work while their counterparts in other technologically advanced nations work for 1600 hours a year--a difference of five full work weeks.
In June 2003, the Bush administration had claimed that the president's tax cut policy would create more than five million jobs by the end of 2004, but the study shows that only 2.6 million jobs were created--1.6 million less than what would have been expected without any special economic stimulus.
"Contrary to what President Bush and his policy makers are saying, tax cuts do not automatically create jobs," said Liz Stanton, director of research at UFE and co-author of the report.
"Their policy is bankrupt," she added. "It is time to recognize that jobs are both created and destroyed during times of tax decreases."
Stanton and other researchers say the weakening of job creation during an economic recovery such as the one currently being experienced by the country is "unprecedented since the First World War."
On Tuesday, Republicans tried hard to advance their tax cut plans, but failed to muster enough support in a Senate body to extend tax cuts for capital gains and dividends beyond their planned expiration in 2008.
The Senate Finance Committee voted 14-6 to endorse a package that would cut taxes by $80 billion over five years but would omit the administration's priority of preserving reduced tax rates for investment income.
Some Republicans who voted for the bill later indicated that they would try to reinstate the extension before the legislation is debated by the full Senate or signed by the president.
Meanwhile, critics of the administration's policies are wary that millions of Americans would not be able to participate in the national feast of Thanksgiving next week.
"This is because the multiple breadwinners each family needs these days don't have jobs," said Anisha Desai, co-author of the study. "Of those that do, many are not making enough money to pay for turkey and trimmings for everybody in the family."
Copyright ? 2005 OneWorld.net."
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1118-02.htm
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TheTruthIs
Guest
Yes, very informative article. You can feel the failure of the stimulus and look around and see virtually zero results from the stimulus but this article explained why.
Doofy, come back from 2005! We are talking about BO and his stimulus plan. Somebody take the keys to the delorean away from him.
Went this morning to bid on a job for a city project . The government gave them about 1.1 million bucks from the stimulus to get it done . They said they would not accept any bids over $600,000 bucks . It can be done in that amount . This decrease in price will most likely result in less people doing the job . Go's to show how the stimulus is not creating jobs .
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TheTruthIs
Guest
Who can afford to put out that much money- only the big companies. Doesn't it take several months to get paid on those types of jobs?
It can If your lucky sometimes they give you a percentage of it up front .On a job like that ,a 6 month job they would most likely pay a percentage each month . Then after completion get the rest of the funds . But I have had to make a loan from the bank before .
steve doocy
Legendary Poster
You talk a lot but rarely back things up. See it's easy to say you do this and that yet not back it up. Give us the name of your company and the city and the specific job so we can verify you're not just making it up. Be a hero. Come on.
