Monday Business Edition
Monday Business Edition is an Open Thread
I don’t believe it. I think this is pre-election posturing. Still, as some have suggested, it’s possible this administration may be forced to make some policy promises that are not so easy to walk away from.
Geithner Urges Action on Economy
By DEBORAH SOLOMON, The Wall Street Journal
September 12, 2010
“If the government does nothing going forward, then the impact of policy in Washington will shift from supporting economic growth to hurting economic growth,” Mr. Geithner said during an interview with The Wall Street Journal in his U.S. Treasury office, citing the example of countries who “shift too quickly to premature restraint” after a crisis, including the U.S. in the 1930s.
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On Sunday, a top Republican lawmaker signaled there might be room to compromise on extending the Bush tax cuts for high-income earners but, in a sign of how fraught the issue is, his words drew immediate skepticism from Obama administration officials. “I want to do something for all Americans who pay taxes,” House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “If the only option I have is to vote for some of those tax reductions, I’ll vote for it. But I’ve been making the point now for months that we need to extend all the current rates for all Americans if we want to get our economy going again, and we want to get jobs in America.”
[The] typical error most countries make coming out of a financial crisis is they shift too quickly to premature restraint. You saw that in the United States in the 30s, you saw that in Japan in the 90s. It is very important for us to avoid that mistake. If the government does nothing going forward, then the impact of policy in Washington will shift from supporting economic growth to hurting economic growth. Mr. Geithner, in the interview, rejected the view of many economists that allowing taxes to rise is unwise at this point in the recovery. The White House estimates the one-year cost of extension at $35 billion and the 10-year cost at $700 billion.
“We don’t have unlimited resources,” Mr. Geithner said. “We just don’t think it would be responsible for this country, given the size of our future deficits, and given the substantial burden the middle class has been bearing over the past decade in particular, to go out and borrow $700 billion from our children so we can sustain those Bush tax cuts that only go to the wealthiest 2% of Americans.”
He said the U.S. can no longer rely on consumer spending, which has long powered the economy, to be the growth engine that leads the recovery this time around and said Washington needed to plant the seeds for business investment and exports.
In the mean time here at The Stars Hollow Gazette we’re going to keep teaching Samuelson and not Snake Oil Salesmen.
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