Blaming Palin and the Tea Party by association: http://twitter.com/larrydhalstead/status/23839195067846656
https://twitter.com/lorion/status/23825734170574849
http://www.newsweek.com/2011/01/11/homeland-security-study-warned-of-right-wing-extremism.html
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/01/11/sneak-preview-of-the-cover-of-the-stranger-this-week-created-by-dan-savage-and-aaron-huffman

Blaming Republicans for the “climate of hate”: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/10/opinion/10krugman.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-f-kennedy-jr/post_1548_b_807713.html

Your experience base is phenomenal, and young and old should find relevence in your musings. I believe that you have absolutely hit on a key component of Apple success, and I am trying to emulate it with our new application. I would like you to review it sometime…Garth

I don’t agree, however, that unemployment benefits offer much notable incentive for people to not get jobs. I think the vast majority of people drawing unemployment are not going to be satisfied to live on that money, and if anything the ability to stay clean, wear respectable clothes, buy gas, and pay an ISP will only help people to find new jobs. Those are not insignificant costs, and they’re definitely not insignificant parts of finding a job. Furthermore, while not any and all spending is stimulus, I think that this IS – these people are going to put money in business right away, and they’re going to be business that make things that everyone needs.

So I guess I’d be happiest if we both extended the cuts and the unemployment benefits. I hope I’m not just going for the fallacy of the golden mean, but at least it’s got an element of real compromise which perhaps each party could recognize as being in good faith.

I don’t think that such spending can be classified as a “stimulus,” as spending money in and of itself is not necessarily stimulating to the broader economy. A real stimulus would be allowing that money to remain in the private sector for investment in new businesses that will create new jobs and spur a genuine recovery. That’s not to say that the social safety net needs to be abandoned, but it is to say that when extending unemployment benefits indefinitely, we must consider A) the way it dampens people’s search for employment and B) the opportunity cost associated.

As for how that relates to the tax issue: while I recognize the need to raise revenue, the reality is that our government will not shrink the deficit by raising taxes. Spending is simply too great for tax hikes to make a dent, and the effect that they have on the private sector investment is too damaging to make them worth the meager amount of revenue that they will raise. The only way to genuinely reduce the deficit is to cut spending, and to cut it substantially. Unfortunately, this is not likely to happen in any substantial way.

Allowing for the extensions to expire and for taxes to be raised makes the extension of unemployment benefits seem more necessary, as it will force both businesses and investors to tighten their belts, making job-creating activity less likely in the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, the extension of benefits will not actually aid in an economic recovery nor in getting people back to work. The result will be continued stagnation. Worse, we’ll see an uptick in the real unemployment rate – that is, the official “unemployment rate” plus the rate of discouraged workers, or those who have stopped seeking employment for the time being, as more people become frustrated with the job market and given the luxury of doing so, will choose to wait for things to
“get better,” although that anticipated recovery may be years away.

My personal opinion, then, is that the tax cuts should be extended, and access to long-term unemployment benefits should be restricted. These two steps do not in and of themselves guarantee an economic recovery, but they are the kind of actions that need to be taken to inspire job creation in this country – and that’s the surest way to end the recession.

But I’m not sure if I agree that extending (or maintaining) tax cuts does not count as cutting taxes. As I understand it, the tax rates are based on what were explained by the Bush administrations as temporary tax cuts. If we don’t repeal them when we were scheduled to, that still sounds like a tax cut to me, even if peoples numbers don’t change between this year and next year.

I also don’t think it’s fair to say that, because the Obama administration spends tons of money, it has no standing to try to increase revenue in some fashion, or spend slightly less, or whatever. I agree that it would be total bullshit for this administration to claim any kind of thirftiness, and while I *may* not agree with calling it fiscally irresponsible, I certainly wouldn’t think anyone who said it was was being unreasonable. But none of that has bearing on whether or not tax cuts (or continuing with previously cut taxes) is a good idea.

How does this issue interact with your opinions about unemployment benefits? It seems like the argument that unemployment benefits, besides helping people who need help, qualify as fairly smart stimulus money because those people are going to go buy things they need and pay their utility bills and their rent.