NYTIMES/HARVARD PROF: TAX CUTS, NOT GOVERNMENT SPENDING

PIGS FLY - A GOOD COLUMN IN THE NYTIMES:

if America does embrace another stimulus round, we should limit the government’s role to being the big borrower rather than the big spender. Cutting payroll taxes for lower-income workers who have just been unemployed is an example of stimulus through borrowing, rather than spending.

... The case for more government spending on tangible government products is most problematic.

While it is easy to get all misty-eyed about the Tennessee Valley Authority, public spending on roads or high-speed rail can be enormously wasteful. At the extreme, spending a billion dollars on a bridge to nowhere may temporarily increase employment and gross domestic product, but it does so by burning a billion dollars on something no one wants. Infrastructure is serious business, and it is impossible to spend quickly and wisely.

... The political and economic case for a second stimulus is strongest if that stimulus means a temporary tax reduction and weakest if the package is yet another increase in the size of the public sector.

RIGHT ON.

BASICALLY HE ARGUES THAT OBAMA'S STIMULUS WAS A WASTE.

IT WAS.

WE CAN FIX THINGS THIS NOVEMBER: VOTE GOP.