Rocky Director in Today’s Post

Andrew Samwick, economics professor and director of the Rockefeller Center here at Dartmouth, has a worthwhile Op-Ed in today’s Post about the bipartisan stimulus package:

Shortly after House leaders and the White House reached a tentative deal Thursday to stimulate the economy, President Bush hailed the agreement as the result of “patience, determination and good will on all sides.” While politically expedient, the stimulus package is unjustified in the short run and harmful in the longer term. We would be better off if “forethought” had figured into Bush’s description.

The $150 billion agreement calls for tax rebates to low- and middle-income households as well as business incentives. Doubtless, this will boost economic activity. If you pull levers, you get movement. Personal consumption and business investment will increase relative to what they might otherwise have been. But there is no discussion of repaying the money through higher taxes in the near term. Let’s drop the euphemism of “stimulus package” and call this agreement by its proper name: “deficit spending.”

Read the whole thing here.

Also, Samwick blogs at Vox Baby.

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