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Jens 'n' Frens
Idle thoughts of a relatively libertarian Republican in Cambridge, MA, and whomever he invites. Mostly political.
"A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures."
-- Daniel Webster
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Wednesday, December 24, 2008 :::
I've been reading that the Obama administration is discussing a stimulus plan on the order of $700 to $800 billion over the next two years. I'd like to note that that's just about the amount of money that employers are scheduled to pay into social security over that time period. Also, that unemployment is likely to be high for the duration of that period, that wages tend to be price-sticky*, and — in case I'm being too subtle — that employers are more interested in hiring and retaining employees when their employment costs are reduced. Putting together $700 billion in actual (as opposed to hypothetical, homogeneous, to be flipped-on-like-a-switch) infrastructure is not likely to result in any kind of efficiency; pausing a tax collection procedure would be comparatively clean.
I understand that the CBO has a list of about $40 billion worth of infrastructure projects that meet cost-benefit analyses and are ordinarily under the purview of the federal government. I wouldn't be strongly averse to doing those. Or maybe sending each state an amount of money, say $100 million per congressman or the like, with which to cut taxes, do its own spending, or move slightly closer to solvency. Heck, do all three; money's free, on some level. But not so free that it makes sense to throw it into a process almost guaranteed to result primarily in waste.
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* While FedEx got a lot of attention for cutting wages, we're mostly seeing freezes announced; I read one story on nytimes.com of a job applicant who had been unemployed for months and finally found a job prospect, but at less than his previous pay, which he seemed to think was unorthodox for him to have to consider, even in a recession.
::: posted by dWj at 1:51 AM
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