By the time they get this thing passed it will have all the potency of last week's teabags. The President's mistake was thinking he could seduce the (dis)loyal opposition into seeing things his way. He couldn't because they have swiftly adopted the Limbaugh mantra, "let him fail" and don't care what happens to the country in the long-term as a consequence of that.

The honeymoon is over.

I would imagine it also matters what the state of the infrastructure is. If it's in pretty good shape, then you get into "increasingly wasteful" territory. If it's had decades of deferred maintenance, then you're less likely to.

I don't know for sure, but I doubt the Japanese had to recover from the effects of the "tax cuts uber alles" crew deferring maintenance for decades like we do.

Here's the scoop:

http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/stimulus-package/latest-cuts-to-the-stim-package-head-start-child-nutrition-food-stamps-public-transit/

Call your Senators and tell them NO on the Nelson-Collins Amendment AND tell them to keep food stamps and all assistance for low income and the unemployed.

I can't believe this is even a consideration.

afisher: While I downloaded and have given a cursory once over to the last CBO report, I can't cite any specific stats in re: multiplier effects. However, in general terms, and as best I understand it, it works like this:

When you inject money into localities to, say, rebuild bridges, the multiplier effect of that is a) to hire contractors to build the bridges, b) demand resources from cement plants, steel mills, tool and die wholesalers, and the whole system needed to support large construction projects, c) extra staffing for local eateries to feed the influx of workers — and on and on and on. You give enough money for one type of project and that "stimulates" need for all those other workers to support that one thing.

That's just looking at infrastructure spending as one example (and also why it is so important as a stimulus).

While I don't know her sources, Rachel Maddow explained on her show the past two nights where the stimulative effect of tax relief is something like for every $1 of tax cuts, you get a return of $1.02. For every $1 you put into food stamps (where every penny of those food stamps is "spent") the return is closer to $1.58 flowing back into the economy (i.e., when a person of limited means goes to the grocery store, if they don't have to worry about buying potatoes, they will buy toilet paper as well; without the food stamps they only buy the potatoes if they can). That is another kind of multiplier effect — and also a clear demonstration of how non-stimulative are tax cuts.