This is a brief article I wrote that was recently published in the Courier Times a daily newspaper based in Bucks County.
Republican senatorial candidate Pat Toomey continues to criticize President Obama's economic policies. He is wrong.
Toomey claims that the stimulus package from 2009 failed the American people. According to a report from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the stimulus has saved nearly three million jobs and prevented the unemployment level from rising to almost 12 percent. Additionally, 95 percent of working families will receive a tax cut this year, stimulating spending and small business growth.
Toomey's plan, calling for Wall Street tax cuts and fatal deregulation, would outsource desperately needed jobs and steer us closer to a double dip recession.
Democrat Joe Sestak supported the economic stimulus package, saving 300,000 Pennsylvania jobs and providing tax breaks for small businesses. Toomey voted against working families and small businesses in favor of corporate interests.
Joe Sestak has always supported working families and will continue to as our next senator.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHere's the same comment as before; I deleted it by accident.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, congratulations on getting published. That's quite an accomplishment, regardless of your views. However, I must disagree with your opinion.
You say the stimulus "has saved nearly three million jobs." First of all, the stimulus was initially hoped to create jobs, not just save them. This in itself however, is a myth. Government cannot create jobs, it can only remove impediments that prevent job creation. But I digress; this is a discussion for another time.
Your logic is rooted in the same logic as that of the broken window theory, first described by the great Frédéric Bastiat ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window ). Let me explain. The idea is that if a window is broken, then someone has to pay for it. This is the idea that all spending helps the economy. Now by this logic, we should all go breaking windows, because under the Keynesian model, which emphasizes demand and spending, this will promote growth. Clearly, this doesn't make much sense. If we spent all our money fixing broken windows, we wouldn't get anywhere.
Demand is not the only side of the equation. We cannot just spend money recklessly. There must be savings and investment to promote growth. In the same model, Bastiat explains how there are always two consequences of government intervention - as he called it, "That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Unseen" ( http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/That_Which_Is_Seen,_and_That_Which_Is_Not_Seen ). You see the idea that the government saved jobs and prevented unemployment from rising. What you cannot see, is that the government prevented jobs from being created, and prevented unemployment from falling, not just in regards to the stimulus, but a multitude of policies based on flawed logic, including the minimum wage.
The fact that 95% of "working families" will receive a tax cut sounds wonderful, until you consider the fact that those who have the highest percentage of wealth extorted from them will not receive a tax cut. In addition, deregulation would be a wonderful thing. Outsourcing jobs benefits the public as a whole, if firms can find cheaper labor and thus have cheaper prices. Deregulation allows competition, which is never a bad thing.
Finally, I would argue that it was the stimulus and bailouts that helped corporate interests (AIG, Goldman Sachs, GM, etc) at the expense of small business owners and working families. This pairing of government and big business can appropriately be seen as a form of fascism.
Once again, I congratulate you on being published, however, I disagree with your logic and argument.