I'm getting damned sick and tired of Cantor.

Any chance we can get him to go for a hike? Up (or down) the Appalachian Trail?

Ignore them K just like I hope Nancy and the rest of the Dems are doing.

Why are the already appropriated stimulus funds not flowing? What's the hold up? Are there republican moles in bureaucratic positions sabotaging the funding release??

Seriously, what's the deal?

Let's not forget Bush's earlier tax rebate.
I think we're flogging a dead horse. RIP American Empire.

It's worth reading Dean Baker over at TAPPED on this topic. There ain't a whole lot of stimulus that's coming, so I wouldn't really make too much of the idea that help is just round the corner.

citzen_pain, do you think there is a money tap in Washington. Spending big hunks of money takes time, sometimes lots of time.

How republicans can magically claim that spending is running un-controllable debts for future generation, yet tax cuts are awesome, is insane.

Debt is only a worry when spending is on the chopping block, never when tax cuts are on the same block.

Both increase our debt, so the only difference is which one is better for the economy, pumping money into the system or removing money from the system. You don't have to be Paul Krugman to figure that one out.

Uh Steve? How about STIM IV? How about the 'checks' Bushco sent out in the Spring of 2008 to 'stimulate' the economy?

Ron, um, no... I don't envision some magical spigot in the Washington Mall that one simply has to turn on and out comes billions of dollars.

But it has been several months, and already the meme of the stimulus not working is surfacing. One reason this recession continues to linger is lack consumer confidence. I am not seeing much of that and I can guarantee you are going to hear about the failure of the stimulus, so the Obama admin. better be ready to counter the incoming deluge of republican talking points on the failure of the stimulus, and to a larger degree the failure of government.

I'd say they better start freeing up some of that money quick and put people to work.

Why are the already appropriated stimulus funds not flowing? What's the hold up? Are there republican moles in bureaucratic positions sabotaging the funding release??

Seriously, what's the deal?
Posted by: citizen_pain on July 6, 2009 at 2:46 PM
-----------------------------
First, three governors try to reject the funds entirely. Palin, Sanford, and Perry. So I suspect there are a whole lot of republicans behind the scenes trying to make sure the stimulus doesn't work.

Second, public works projects take time to identify, plan, and execute. Think FDR and the Tennessee Valley Authority. These were not over night fixes, they were long term projects intended to make the economy stronger then before the depression.

In May I read something like $700 billion had yet to be spent and that they projected just over half would be spent in a year from when it was signed by Obama, so February.

Now, once again: How do we pay for government programs and services Eric?

"Tax cuts"!

That's right Eric, you get an A+!

More "cut and run" Repukes. Tax "CUT and RUN" the economy into the ground (with deficit spending). Same GOP, different day. Reagan, Bush/Cheney, or Cantor, they seem to be clueless that even if you divert people's attention from your spending excesses by announcing that you are going to 'cut taxes', and you disguise your spending excesses by keeping a separate set of books (for your personal pet wars, for example), a deficit is still a deficit. Spending more than you bring in is usually called "being fiscally irresponsible", and that benefiting the wealthy few at the expense of the many (and the environment) does not make for a thriving economy and healthy workers. What is does it dig a huge financial whole for us to drown in, weaken our national security, and hold us hostage to the 'dreaded communists" and the 'dreaded muslims' whom the repukes profess to hate, yet they gladly turn over the keys to our financial future to them for short-sited and short-term gain. Their recklessness, stupidity and hypocrisy are truly unparalleled. Cut and run republicans, every damn one of them.

If we could figure out how to weld Cantor's face shut---a combination of super-glue, rivets, and duct-tape might be in order here---then we wouldn't have to set aside so much money to combat global warming.

I mean, seriously---what's the atmospheric difference between Cantor's "speechifying" and the aft-end emissions of an 800-pound cow?!?

citizen_pain, It is hard as hell to roll out billions of dollars within 4 months of approval of the stimulus package. Government bureaucrats are not going to the street corner to hand out money to every passing beggar. Even the stimulus package had some minimal strings. It takes time to ramp up any spending project. Hopefully in the case of the stimulus package it is going to take less time than normal, but even if everything is on a complete fast track the stimulus money won't start to really flow until later in the year.

I know of one project where contractors are going have to assemble teams of skilled people to do the work necessary to bid on contracts that will total multi-billions of dollars. Once the people are hired they have to be trained. Then and only then will the money start to flow. In the mean time, the banks are still not loaning as they did in past years, but that is another issue.

In short Cantor is out to lunch, just because the money hasn't started flowing within 4 months doesn't prove the stimulus package isn't working.

I think we should have a tax cut to help stimulate EMPLOYMENT.

I think the Federal Government should pay everyone's, corporation's and self employed's included, Payroll tax.

It will give all working Americans a 7.65% tax cut. It will give corporations a similar tax cut and really help the self-employed.

A payroll tax is the only tax cut that really would help payroll. All the other crap in the Republican proposal is fairly worthless and would have a minor effect on the economy in 2 to 3 years.

Tom Jones, you assume the Republicans really want to help the economy. What Republicans want to do is help their rich friends and patrons (including Chinese and Japanese industrialists.) The rest of us and the economy in general can suck eggs.

The only problem with your proposal is that it will lead to run away inflation sooner than later.

I was "shilling for Dems" on the 4th and, one of the things we had was a breakdown of stimulus money as it applies/will apply to our area (Lexington, Buena Vista, Glasgow and Rockbridge County in Virginia). Of the proposed projects, only about a third were considered "shovel ready" and of those not every project has yet go the "go" signal.

The majority of ones which *did* get an OK were in education (broadly speaking) -- fix up the leaking roof in a school, don't fire the teachers, etc. The structural problems had been "shovel ready" for a long time, but there wasn't money for them. Now there is, but fixing an existing structure isn't "sexy" enough to make much news, except in the directly affected locality. The "don't fire the teachers" comes within the area of "stanch the bleeding", rather than creating new jobs, so, again, it doesn't make much news of the "stimulus is working!" kind.

As for the rest of the money -- still unreleased... I'd rather that, than have it shipped, unchecked and unaccounted for, to every scam artist that comes, hat in hand, and asks for it. Visions of unaccounted billion$ floating on pallets in Iraq are too firmly embedded in my mind. Let the cash dispensing machine grind slowly (especially as it's only starting; it's likely to pick up speed as it goes on. Kind-a like a choo-choo train) but accurately. There'll be less waste that way than if we just throw money at things, haphazardly, and pray for miracles.

To be fair, tax aren't always an ineffective economic stimulus. But they are ineffective in times like today when people would save money rather than spend it.

But Obama's first stimulus plan was far too modest, as many of us argued at the time. And the cutting of state and local govt budgets isn't helping matters.

I worry that the insufficient size of January's plan will unfairly discredit the idea of another fiscal stimulus.

Tom,

"It will give all working Americans a 7.65% tax cut. It will give corporations a similar tax cut and really help the self-employed. A payroll tax is the only tax cut that really would help payroll."

There is no evidence that it would have a different result than the failed stimulus checks. People would overwhelmingly save it or use it to pay off bills or debt, none of which is stimulative.

g. powell,

"To be fair, tax aren't always an ineffective economic stimulus."

What's fair about it ?

Tax cuts have NEVER stimulated the national economy, created jobs, or increased federal income tax revenue.

Whatever wins the cable news cycle, baby. Whatever wins.

This isn't stupid - it is clever, at least within the limited terms of the GOP's tangled web of messages and donor groups.

I mean, sure, this program is contradictory and hypocritical, and it marks the absolute contempt that the GOP has for economic policy (and the voting public). But Cantor intends to hit a double bank shot.

First, this is the usual ideological aggression from the GOP. Cantor wants to descredit spending increases as a way to fight the recession, and start rebuilding a constituency for big tax cuts.

Second, Cantor is trying to plant the meme that Obama's stimulus program is already a failure - and that we need to do something big and different, REALLY FAST, along the GOP's perrenial policy lines, or else Obama will then be at fault for the continued recession and the one to blame. Surrender, Dorothy!

Third ... that cognitive dissonance about complaining about deficits while proposing huge new tax cuts? Easy. Cantor probably intends this proposal to be coupled with the GOP's party line that tax cuts don't increase the deficit, and "always" pay for themselves (ha!). So therefore, a "recovery" plan based completely upon tax cuts is the fiscally prudent way to go. Woohoo!

This program doesn't have to be plausible, or even workable. It is just politics, and dresses up the GOP's discredited economic policies with a nice little bow. And it gives the GOP's members something to talk about - as if they have an answer, or a plan - and it is a way for them to go on the attack.

This act doesn't have to convince everyone - none of the GOP's policies are designed that way. It just needs to attract enough rubes and talk-radio listeners, combined with enough cynics who know better (but who will benefit from the tax breaks), to make it become potent, and scare the Democrats into breaking for cover.

And - as always - there is money in it for the GOP. This is designed to refill the GOP's coffers. Watch while the campaign contributions from corporate America flood in. It will be just like fundraising during the 2000 election!

Watch Cantor go out and sell this POS like the smirking little cheese-weasel that he is ... while simultaneously whining about Obama's spending and deficits. And know the reason for his smirk. Watch. Just watch.

If you've got a bullet lodged in your head and can't seem to get it out the Republican solution is to carefully target another bullet right at the back of it to shove it through to the other side where, just emerging from the skull, a doctor may be able to see it and exclaim 'There it is, by god! Buy me some forceps, Johnson, the good kind, made in America!'

If you are worried about people saving and not spending the extra income they would get from a payroll tax holiday then make indiividuals keep paying and let businesses get the tax holiday.

That sounds way to Republican for me.

If you make it cheaper to hire a worker then, at the margin, a few more workers will be hired.

Yeah, Cantor is a sick hypocrite. He is so slow he can't even remember bragging about the effects of the stimulus package in his own state before complaining how it didn't work.

The economy would be more stimulated by rolling back the tax cuts for the very wealthy. Roll back the Reagan tax cuts so there is enough money for our government to rebuild its infrastructure, hire more police and firemen as well as teachers and emergency medical personnel.

We're talking over $10 trillion within the first 5yrs. Now that's a stimulus package.

btw...read that WPo article about healthcare lobbyists spending 1.5mil/day to stop a public option. That proves it would be highly successful...plus shows how gov employees go back and forth to health care lobbying firms to influence our reps.

We must find a way to stop lobbyist from controlling our government as thousands (350 just on health care previous employees of congress and senate) are working congress daily with legal bribery.

Joe Friday --

Agreed that tax cuts never raise national revenue, the Laffer Curve is total bullshit.

But if you cut taxes and put more money in people's pockets, and they spend it, that stimulates the economy. Obviously. But now people would likely save that money, so tax cuts are a bad idea.

Kennedy's tax cuts, and Reagan's, certainly had a stimulative effect. Nobody disputes that. The question is whether it was good policy. I don't think it was.

g. powell,

"But if you cut taxes and put more money in people's pockets, and they spend it, that stimulates the economy."

It's never happened.

The Bushies tried the tax cuts. They didn't work. Last year, they tried sending people checks. They overwhelmingly either saved it or use it to pay down debt or pay off bills. None of it is stimulative. It failed, as I predicted ahead of time in these forums.

"Kennedy's tax cuts, and Reagan's, certainly had a stimulative effect."

No they did not.

"Nobody disputes that."

I do and have here previously. To recap:

A) There were no "Kennedy Tax Cuts". The tax cuts in question were enacted by Congress in 1964. JFK was shot dead in 1963.

B) The national economy experienced a dramatic slow-down in 1966, less than 18 months after federal income tax rate cuts were enacted into law, with GDP going over a cliff from 10.1% down to 1.4% (note that the previous high levels of GDP occurred while the top marginal rate of individual income tax was 91%).

C) After the 1981 federal income tax rate cuts under Reagan were enacted, GDP was a net negative 9% over the six subsequent quarters, and as David Stockman (Director of the OMB 1981-1985) stated, federal income tax revenues plunged to 1940's levels as a result. Both GDP and tax revenue only turned up again after Reagan started dramatically raising federal taxes.

Every time federal income tax rate cuts have been enacted, the national economy subsequently either slowed dramatically (the '60s), or entered recession (the '80s and '00s), and federal income tax revenues plummeted precipitously.