So a lot of people are grumbling that the economic stimulus package isn't working. And maybe it isn't. The economy is still shedding jobs like a cheap carpet, and my state is circling the drain.
What irritates me is that a lot of the grumbling is on the right. Six months into the new administration, and they are unwilling to give Obama the chance they demanded that the country give Bush... for eight years.
Yet why should they be so unhappy? As the above chart from the July 13 issue of Time magazine shows, they got the thing they're always clamoring for... tax cuts! That's right, so far, something like 60% of the stimulus is tax cuts.
I'm sorry, but are tax cuts only acceptable when a Republican president is in power?
As for why they aren't working... well, it doesn't seem to me like they worked that well over the last decade either. (though recent research suggests cuts can be stimulating)
Do we need a second stimulus bill? I don't know, but it looks to me like the first one hasn't even kicked in yet.
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