Republicans love to say that they oppose tax increases because the people should be in charge of spending their own money, not the government. But realistically, what were our spending options for that $300 tax rebate we got last summer? It did very little to "stimulate" the economy, probably because most of us used it either to pay bills or to buy some cheap imported consumer item. I don't want another silly toy, I want a bus.
By cutting taxes, government does not increase our options, it reduces them. I can't afford to buy a better transit system by myself, and that's what I most want right now. I wish I could get on a bus in my small rural town and travel quickly and safely to Portland or Seattle or beyond, but that is not an option at the moment because mass transit in general in this country is lousy. I want an infrastructure!
Unfortunately, one third of the nearly trillion dollar stimulus package now working its way through Congress consists of tax cuts. Rachel Maddow reports that this is apparently the work of Obama's economic advisor Larry Summers. According to my congressman, Peter Defazio, Summers hates infrastructure. He is after stimulating a consumer driven economy, not a public investment driven economy.
Obviously Summers needs to do the math. DeFazio says that last year's stimulus bill gave less than a one percent boost to the economy, so why are we repeating the tax rebate/cut mistake?
Please Mr. President, take back those tax cuts and spend it on mass transit. DeFazio says that Chicago alone has a 6 billion dollar backlog of transit improvements that are "shovel ready," but the stimulus package would provide only 2.5 billion. Hasn't Larry Summers ever heard of the multiplier effect? Not only would fully funding Chicago's transit needs provide jobs in that city, but it would immediately create 3000 new jobs in Minnesota building the buses.
Please Barack, buy me a bus, and while you're at it, please feel free to - metaphorically speaking - throw Larry Summers under the bus.
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