Monday, January 30, 2017

Trump's Stimulus plan

It seems that it's getting some cautious support (if that's the word) from libertarian quarters:
Before this list was released, the Antiplanner was far from thrilled with what little we know of Trump’s infrastructure plan, which calls for giving tax credits to private investors who spend money on infrastructure. When compared with the Democrats’ plan, however, it has some solid virtues:
  1. While the Democrats take a top-down approach dictating where the money will go, Trump leaves the setting of priorities to state and local governments;
  2. Where the Democrats would commit the federal government to spend an arbitrary amount of money whether it needs to be spent or not, Trump lets state & local governments decide how much to spend and how they will pay for it;
  3. Where Democrats would add $1 trillion to the deficit, Trump relies on a tax credit program that will cost the feds no more than $167 billion per trillion in spending (less, obviously, if less than $1 trillion is spent);
  4. Where a lot of the Democrats money would go down a rat hole, at least some of federal tax credits that Trump’s plan would issue will be offset by the reduced use of tax-free municipal bonds and taxes paid by companies and workers earning the money.
There's quite a lot of Compare And Contrast at the link, if you're interested.

1 comment:

Old NFO said...

Great link, thanks!