Brownanomics
Assuming that state Sen. Scott Brown wins the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate on Dec. 8 (first he has to get by perennial candidate Jack E. Robinson), he’s going to have to show greater economic literacy than he has to date.
On Saturday, the New York Times quoted Mark Zandi — an economic adviser to Republican president candidate John McCain in 2008 — as saying that the $787 billion stimulus has created or saved 1.1 million jobs. If anything, Zandi added, the stimulus should have been bigger.
And Martin Feldstein, a top economic adviser to President Ronald Reagan — who, you may have heard, was also a Republican — told the Times that the main problem with the stimulus was that it relied too much on tax cuts and too little on federal spending. Feldstein said:
There should have been more direct federal spending that would have added to aggregate demand. Temporary tax cuts and one-time transfers to seniors were largely saved and didn’t stimulate spending.
Now here’s what Brown told the Boston Globe when asked if he would support a second stimulus (he would not): “It hasn’t created one job that I’m aware of.”
It gets worse: “It created government jobs certainly, and government is doing well.” Brown does not explain what government jobs were created, but perhaps he’s referring to government jobs that were saved — those of teachers, police officers and firefighters. Would he rather they be unemployed?
Tags: economics, Scott Brown, stimulus
Fish: This will be my last comment on the subject. The kinds of laws you are referring to have nothing to do with what SIlverglate analyzes in his book. Your continued attempts to try to offer comments on a book you have not read are bizarre.
And by the way, my journalism students certainly know that, in Massachusetts, you can’t tape someone without his consent.
CORRECTION: Second paragraph should have read:
Granted, most FEDERAL laws and prosecutions are higher profile, but the feds have no monopoly on the absurd.
Dan, you can legally videotape them but not audiotape them. I hope you know the distinction and I hope that is what you teach your students. I hope you ask the Husky pups to ponder whether or not that audio/video distinction is quite bizzare as well. One a felony, one not a crime.
Even more bizzare is that you cherrypick only federal laws as “(T)he kinds of laws” that you feel are enforced when the violator had no criminal intent.
Funny, almost every federal lawmaker from MA had a role in local lawmaking before going to DC. Did these solons suddenly go crazy upon landing near the Potomac, or are they just continuing to pool the game they started here? You can’t have it both ways.
Fish: Wrong again, or at least confusing. Non-consensual video recording is allowed only if there is no sound.
Isn’t that what I wrote Dan? Videotape is legal. Audiotape is a felony.
Videotape, in its purest form, doesn’t have “sound”. Not sure why you are inserting sound into the conversation about video. Also not sure why you are calling me wrong and confusing.
What’s confusing is not me, but the state law that makes one surreptitious recording a felony and one no crime at all.
You should aim your derision at the legislature, Dan. Not at me.
Don’t take it personally, Fish.
It is Dan’s telling you that he has no other way of countering your thesis.