Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


After plowing my way through the Mitch Daniels saga yesterday, I was surprised to read Ezra Klein today agreeing that Daniels had proposed a conventional stimulus plan:

The parties disagree on a lot of things, but they don’t disagree over the idea that the government should act to increase demand when the economy sags. The theory behind a payroll tax cut (the government increases its deficit in order to get more money to people who can spend it so they will increase demand) and an infrastructure investment (the government increases its deficit in order to get more money to businesses who can spend it) is not theoretical, but practical: Do you think one is more stimulative than the other, and do you think one is more worthwhile than the other?

And Matt Yglesias agreed. Daniels’ plan isn’t as praiseworthy as all that, he says, but “that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be effective stimulus relative to the policy status quo, and viewed in that light much is forgivable.”

Am I missing something? In Ezra’s interview with Daniels yesterday, Daniels addressed some of the confusion from his original op-ed and made it crystal clear that he didn’t intend for his plan to increase the deficit either in the short term or the long term. In fact, he went so far as to say that if his spending cuts turned out to be smaller than he hoped, he’d cut back on the payroll tax holiday in order to keep things deficit neutral.

Would this act as a stimulus anyway? It might, possibly, at the very margins. Perhaps a payroll tax cut has a higher multiplier than than the TARP and ARRA spending Daniels wants to cut. Or maybe it would have a faster effect. But those are tiny effects at best. If Daniels intends for his plan to be deficit neutral, it’s not neo-Keynesian or neo anything else. It’s just a temporary tax cut, and even the supply siders don’t give temporary tax cuts any credit for stimulating the economy. I don’t think anyone else would either.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate