Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Slight change in plans for tax breaks in stimulus plan

Obama has changed his stimulus plan slightly, very much for the better, I think. He floated a proposal for $300 billion worth of tax credits for job creation. I wasn't following this very closely, because details will get hammered out after the Inaugural. But this didn't sound right. Tax cuts are not what we need right now, particularly for this kind of thing.

Republicans, of course, liked it, and Obama was making noises about this being a bipartisan effort. Democrats, of course, didn't like it, and shot it down.

I like the way Obama played this. He made nice with Republicans, which, of course, made them feel good. But then Democrats shot down a bad proposal. So Obama is the good cop, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are the bad cops. Which is a role they are used to. What I particularly like about this is that it sends the message that the Democrats are controlling the agenda. Good message to send. Guess what, Republicans? Tax cuts ain't the name of the game any more. Get those delusions out of your system. Repeat after me: tax cuts do not raise revenue. Supply-side economics is garbage.

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