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The Fairness of Fiscal Stimulus
January 30, 2008 You Can't Have it Both Ways

Jason Furman and Steven Landsburg are having an econ-celebrity death match over at the LA Times. My favorite salvo to date:

 

It seems fundamentally unfair to say that we’ll help you out with an expensive stimulus package if you lost your job this month, but we’ll foot you with the bill for that package if you lost your job a year ago and then found your way back into the workforce. Not only is it unfair, but if the package doesn’t work, it’s unwise to boot.

Allow me to add the observation that if people believe getting more money into the hands of consumers is a good thing to do today (ignore the correct observation for a second that the current stimulus requires higher taxes or inflating in the future), then why is that concept treated with such hostility when the economy is not on the verge of recession?

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