The Real CBO Report, Please Stand Up
by Polk
While conservatives have ran out touting a non-existant CBO report, the CBO did something crazy: write an actual one. A little over half to be spent in the next 18 months, with another quarter of the money over the year after that. Lightening speed it is not, but far different from the claims of the right that it would take many years before any of the money hit the economy.
Meanwhile, conservatives contiune to push for tax cuts as the quick path to grow, even though the stimulus plan will create one new job for about every $50,000 spent, while tax cuts would require in excess of a million dollars to be cut to create even a single job (the Bush tax cuts, even under the most friendly of assumptions, spent around $900,000 for every job created).
Tags: stimulus
It looks at first glance like much of the money that takes longer to spend is either a) devoted to projects that are going to take more than 2 years to complete, b) have seasonal concerns (working on highways in the Northern winter isn’t really feasible), or c) are designed as lingering outlays for 3-4 years down the road.
All in all a pretty decent bill, but I’d like it to be bigger.