Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Suck on that, Grover

Here's a chart from the Economic Policy Institute, that shows how much economic stimulus you get for each federal dollar spent on different types of stimulus (please show it to anyone who espouses Grover Norquist-style corporate, capital, or estate tax cuts):



Ezra puts it best:

The basic way to think about this is that you get less stimulus when you focus on the ri[c]h, and more when you focus on the poor. That's pretty intuitive. If you don't have enough money to make ends meet, and you get some money, you spend it now. If you have ple[n]ty of money, and you get some money, you put it away, That's not very stimulating. As such, tax cuts which primarily focus on the well-off sit at the bottom of the chart, tax cuts for the working class are near the top (like the payroll tax holiday), and things like infrastructure spending and food stamps lead the way.


Notice that the bottom three are related to Shrub & Grover tax policy, while the top three are food stamps, unemployment insurance, and infrastructure spending. It's strange: things are so clear when you actually have research to back up opinion...

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