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Originally Posted by dogzilla
I can find articles from economists who oppose the stimulus spending as well. I look at any article on the economy or other social issues coming out of Harvard as having a liberal bias unless definitively proven otherwise.
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I invite you to find them. However, I would like to hear your opinion on how the author suggests stimulus spending should be managed. I know you are opposed to stimulus spending; if you don't want to comment on the aspects of it, at least comment on why you'd disagree with stimulus spending of this kind.
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The government should not be meddling in the economy at all. Let supply and demand drive the market.
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If the American government stopped "meddling" with their economy, it would be at the mercy of global markets and it would be taken advantage of. America would be the only advanced economy that isn't a mixed economy, and if you think that's a good idea, you're mistaken, because government "meddling" includes such protective measures as tariffs, quotas, and embargoes. (That's right, even the embargo against Cuba would come to an end.) And this is just one aspect.
This would mean the U.S. would cede much economic and political power to the global market, which consists of powerful economies that are actively managed mixed economies (which, historically are the most stable in the history of the world).
I'm not sure that's what you mean to say. There is no such thing as a purely free market. If you think America can compete with a purely free market, I don't know where you'd get that idea. For example, the average American worker is currently overpriced in the global market by a long shot. Have you ever seen the wholesale collapse of an agricultural industry? What are you thinking, exactly? (By the way, I think the U.S. agricultural industry would probably be saved in this scenario by opening up the borders, especially to Mexicans. Without any labour restrictions in the economy, you'd get some cheaper workers that way, and a lot of them.)
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Obama's meddling in the auto market and the housing market illustrate this. All Obama did was succeed in borrowing against future sales at taxpayer expense. As soon as cash for clunkers ended, sales of new cars dropped. As soon as Obama's homebuyer's tax credit ended, housing sales dropped.
One other thing Obama did accomplish with his cash for clunkers program was to increase the price of used cars, and increase the expenses for lower income people who needed to buy cars, thanks to his idiotic requirement that the clunkers turned in be destroyed.
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I can't comment much on these programs because I don't know much about them. However, on the surface they've always seemed to me to be short-term measures to prevent deep damage to the industries. Did Cash for Clunkers, despite its effect on the used market, get domestic manufacturers to loosen up their inventories, which would in turn lead them to fire up their plants to make more? And although the homebuyer's tax credit was short-term, did people not use it to buy homes? Does this not in turn lead to further sales in the form of home-based consumer goods and services?
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[...] there is no justification for taxing someones second $20,000 in income at a higher rate than his first $20,000 in income other than the liberal's insistence on wealth redistribution by taxation. A person works at least as hard to get to a $40,000 income as they do to get to a $20,000 income level.
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Well, another way to look at it is that the first $20,000 is taxed
lower.