The radical lefties over at the Huffington Post know nothing about economics:

From the stimulus debate, we know that both progressive and conservative economists agree that spending on programs like unemployment and food stamps are a far better boost to the economy than extending tax cuts. This makes sense – whereas a rich person may simply pocket a new tax break, a person on the economic brink will spend cash on necessities almost immediately. Thus, we can safely conclude that raising taxes on the wealthy and devoting those new resources to such programs would be a much better boost to the economy than simply extending tax cuts for the wealthy.

First of all, conservative economist don’t agree.  The Founding fathers didn’t agree. That’s just nonsense.

Secondly, rich people don’t “pocket” money. They either spend it or invest it. Even putting your money in a savings account is investing it. This money is desperately needed by banks to improve their balance sheets and reduce the risk of lending. Invested money can get us out of the liquidity trap that we all learned about when the housing market crashed.

We need to create wealth. Taking money from the producers and handing it over to the idle is a very bad idea.

Finally, it would be far better to give someone a job instead of a hand-out. What happened to the “audacity of hope”. Is it hopeful to want welfare? No…people hope for jobs. Some of those conservative economist think that raising taxes on the wealthy could reduce hiring by 18%. That is a significant decrease in jobs and a big increase in government spending. It seems to me that the solution is to get people to work and away from assistance. Taxing people and pissing it away in Washington doesn’t sound like a good plan to me.

I’ll leave you with a quote from Winston Churchill.

We contend that for a nation to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.

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