Anyone up for putting on some duct tape?
So Obama’s new stimulus plan has been criticized. Big deal. He knew it was going to happen, Congress knew about it, even the people would’ve expected it. Based on the proposal in which he will table to Congress, the new stimulus package is meant to address the issue on high unemployment while increasing domestic consumption at the same time. So how will the USD$ 447 billion stimulus package be funded? Through one off cuts from the Healthcare programmes, as well as “limiting deductions for upper middle income earners”; in other words, taxing the rich.
The so called “Buffet Rule” (with reference to Warren Buffet), I don’t think this would much a very attractive package, particularly in the eye of politicians since apparently a significant number of the House of Representatives and The Senate are meant to be millionaires? But it seems like the Republicans are much more resistant towards the idea of reshuffling the budget to spend more rather than being taxed. There’s also the matter of the effectiveness of Obama’s plan; some find it to be “non-progressive” in nature since the stimulus package is funded through one-off cuts rather than a complete overhaul on the American fiscal structure. Frankly, I couldn’t agree more on this claim.
We all know that stimulus packages are a double-edged sword; it helped them pull through the 2008 without dragging the whole world with them (but no politician will get credited for actions he took which avoided catastrophes; people have a short memory) but we’ve also seen countries like Japan pull of a number of programmes which has done nothing to help to put their economy back on track (putting both their macro and microeconomic characteristics aside that is). From Obama’s point of view, pulling an austerity stunt would without a doubt drive the American economy straight off into the Recession river. So would this measure help save them?
As much as I hate to say this, I don’t know.
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