Earth to news lady, it's not literally about keeping money in your pocket.

The point is that either the government gets to spend it or the small business owner gets to spend it. The problem is that an individual small business owner who gets to keep an additional $1000 a year is not going to create any new jobs. He's probably just going to pay off a small loan. But if the government gets that $1000 from a million small businessmen, it can invest in infrastructure, employing a hundred thousand people and making things work better for everyone, including the small businessman, who will save more money in the longterm because transporation and communication have been improved, lowering his costs of doing business. Republicans go on and on about small businessmen being the engine of the economy, but when I drive around and see small businesses, I see mom and pop operations just barely staying above water because of faulty business models or poor location or poor management or bad employees or substandard products.

>> ^Flood:
Earth to news lady, it's not literally about keeping money in your pocket.


I almost preemptively posted about that, since I kinda knew there would be someone out there who would claim Nora is the one who comes off looking like an idiot.

Here's the deal: the chief reason why Democrats are skeptical about tax cuts as stimulus is that many people will opt to save it or pay off loans, not spend it.

This guy kept hammering the tired Republican cliche about "letting people keep their money", and Nora rightly pointed out that people keeping their money is what creates a stagnant economy in the first place.

It was just a turn of phrase, but it seemed to flabbergast Mr. McCarthy here.

I understand that NetRunner.

But the news lady is clearly confused. She says "I thought you said you wanted people to spend that money ... that's not keeping it in their pocket."

The guys trying to describe how a tax cut gives people more spending power. He says "It goes faster into an individual's pocket." to imply that it becomes theirs to spend how they like. I thought it was obvious. Maybe it wasn't.

One last thing. No where in the vid does the lady make the point that people keeping their money is what creates a stagnant economy. It's not a bad point (though not 100% accurate, it's people not spending their money that creates a stagnant economy), its just that she doesn't make it. It is also an entirely separate issue from whether or not the government should be allowed to spend it for people.

Republicans go on and on about small businessmen being the engine of the economy, but when I drive around and see small businesses, I see mom and pop operations just barely staying above water because of faulty business models or poor location or poor management or bad employees or substandard products.

You're describing free market capitalism, which includes the freedom to make poor decisions and even fail. Government operations are the exact opposite in that they keep going whether or not they're a failure. You could not ask for a better operational model of what socialism does to an economy than California, which is run at every level by Democrats. High taxation drove many businesses away and now the State is bankrupt when all it had to do--at minimum--to stay solvent was cut off "benefits" to illegal aliens.

When government confiscates your dollar, nothing magical happens. Bureaucrats would rather use that dollar to expand their bureaucracy and politicians would rather use it to buy votes via programs or projects. The whole fraud is based on a deliberate distortion of the phrase "promote the general welfare" in the Constitution.

People right now are "holding on" to their money because government is acting like an a**hole. No one wants to invest when there are no laws to prevent government from seizing their money. No one wants to spend when taxes threaten to go higher, and one the left never seems to figure out: people won't work harder or risk investing when government has already guaranteed it will seize more of their "extra" earnings.

Government isn't the solution, government is the problem. Their corrupt programs and policies caused these crises, they fanned the flames and now they're the ones engaged in Grand Theft Treasury. And Bush deserves a huge measure of blame for going right along with Congress on the original bailouts.

>> ^Flood:
The guys trying to describe how a tax cut gives people more spending power.

I understand that, Flood.

But the news lady is clearly confused. She says "I thought you said you wanted people to spend that money ... that's not keeping it in their pocket."

[snip]

No where in the vid does the lady make the point that people keeping their money is what creates a stagnant economy.

I'm thinking you're confused. Maybe the use of metaphor in your own quotation of her is the issue. I thought its meaning was obvious. Maybe it wasn't.

I suppose if you want to split hairs, I mischaracterized it slightly; she doesn't say people keeping their money creates a stagnant economy, instead she says people keeping their money won't help correct a stagnant economy (or "stimulate" the economy). That seems like a semantic quibble though.

This video seems to be a political Rorschach test; people like me find it funny because the conservative looks like a fool as Nora ties him in knots and condescendingly acts confused, you think it's funny because Nora questions the proposition of taxcuts as stimulus, and seems to not understand the very idea, as if it's ludicrous.

Anchorwoman shows a bit of arrogance grilling the reporter like that. Too bad you don't have to know a lick about journalism to look good on TV.

>> ^NetRunner:
I suppose if you want to split hairs, I mischaracterized it slightly; she doesn't say people keeping their money creates a stagnant economy, instead she says people keeping their money won't help correct a stagnant economy (or "stimulate" the economy). That seems like a semantic quibble though.

Are we watching the same video? I don't see anything even closely like that.

0:00 - "So you believe that tax cuts are stimulus?"
0:10 - "And how do tax cuts; and Congressman, how do tax cuts create jobs?
0:45 - "Really!? I'd have thought you'd have to hire someone to put the new sod down on the nation mall. I mean, just to play Devils Advocate doing alot of those projects you have to... [interupted]"
1:00 - "On no I thought you said you want the small business to spend that money to hire more people I thought thats what you just said. That is not keeping it in their pocket. You're not trying to pad the pockets of small business are you?"
1:17 - *Obnoxious Laugh* "Why that doesn't make any sense to me but anyways."

So perhaps you can see how I am confused.

I find the video funny not because she questions of the idea of tax cuts stimulating the economy, because I question that myself. I find the video funny because I see a lady who can't even follow the guy's point. I don't see a woman who is disagreeing with a point so much as a woman who confuses the metaphor of tax cuts giving people more money with a metaphor for people not spending money. After her statement at around the 1:00 mark, the guy tries to clarify but she just laughs and says that she doesn't get it.

Perhaps it is a political Rorschach test, because all I see is a lady who comes off as an obnoxious, clueless, twit while the guy was trying to politely explain the theory behind the idea of tax cuts as economic stimulus.