> 3. The stimulus did not have the pump priming effects that Obama hoped it > would have; if it had then state budgets would not be in such bad shape.
Obama didn't want a bigger stimulus and/or wouldn't fight to get Congress to go along with a bigger one. It wasn't very stimulative (being too small with too much emphasis on tax cuts). While it's true that the state and local governments would have been in better shape than currently if Obama had stimulated more, falling stock prices would have hurt the balances on pension plans and the general fall in revenues (and rise in transfer payments) would still have been pretty bad. -------------------- The point about tax cuts is that these are the primary cause of the problem. The only way that the debt can be reduced is for those who currently hold government assets to lose them to the government. The only ways that can occur are by 1. Inflation. 2. A default or general debt moratorium 3. Having the holdings of the bond owning classes taxed out of existence. The University of Glasgow, charity number SC004401 _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
