Re: Cutting Taxes to Spur the Economy

From: Dossy (dossy@panoptic.com)
Date: Mon Jul 07 2003 - 19:42:11 MDT

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    On 2003.07.07, Lee Corbin <lcorbin@tsoft.com> wrote:
    > > > 1. when should government print money
    > >
    > > When it needs more new money, of course.
    >
    > How perfectly awful of you to say that!

    But of course. It was just begging for it; I couldn't resist.

    > So the government prints $2,000,000,000 and hands it out, [... then]
    > the government takes the $2,000,000,000 out of the subsequent tax
    > revenue, and burns it.

    Sounds like you've answered your own question.

    > [...] by "growth" I mean that which takes us towards the singularity.
    > Whatever advances the economy in the long run.

    Tax cuts stimulate both short term and long term growth. Tax hikes do
    the same thing, really. Any external artificial force on the economy
    has the opportunity to stimulate growth. Nothing is guaranteed, of
    course.

    > > > A nice generalization, but not always true. What about the
    > > > times that government projects, usually infrastructure, end
    > > > up creating wealth in the long run?
    > >
    > > Like which?
    >
    > It may be that the American space program is an example,
    > and it's likely that the "American Road" they built
    > across the Appalachians in the early 1800's is another.
    > I don't know if the English government were involved
    > (one must say "they", one knows), but it might have
    > turned out to be very sensible to have got behind
    > all the canal building over there in the late 1700s.

    I'm surprised you didn't lump "the Internet" in there as well.

    Realize that a lot of government projects utilize vendors in the private
    sector. Even infrastructure-building and other government projects is
    really just a venue for redistributing tax funds back into the economy
    ... which is exactly why both tax hikes and tax cuts have similar
    effects. Of course, since I'm on this side of the fence, I enjoy tax
    cuts more because I'd rather spend the money myself, than let government
    spend it for me.

    -- Dossy 

    -- 
Dossy Shiobara                       mail: dossy@panoptic.com 
Panoptic Computer Network             web: http://www.panoptic.com/ 
  "He realized the fastest way to change is to laugh at your own
    folly -- then you can let go and quickly move on." (p. 70)

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