in theory. the twist is, however, that people like you and i receive the smallest tax cuts, though we as a group are large as consumers. wealthy people receive ridiculously huge tax cuts and then hoard the savings. the idea, called "trickle down", is that if you give the wealthiest people tax cuts, they will invest those savings in their businesses and create jobs - trickling down the money. they never do that though. it's something the republicans can never figure out. trickle down theory doesn't work.

If the government spends money, they buy U.S. goods and services from Americans. If you spend money, you might buy a Japanese television or something made in Nigeria, doing little to create growth in the U.S. Also, the government could, in theory, spend more money on education (ha ha ha.) Also, Bush's last tax cut did nothing for the economy. Americans should pay much more in taxes if we want to improve the overall standard of living. We're way behind Europe.

One last thing: Bush talks about this $550 billion tax cut generating one million jobs. Even if he's right -- that's $550,000 per job! Hell, Mr. President, for $550,000, I'll generate three jobs! That's my commitment to you!

it's not the same thing. the whole idea is that the government continues to spend the same amount after the tax cut as they did before. you get to keep more of your own money and, if you spend it, then the overall amount of spending goes up. the govt borrows to make up the shortfall. the increased spending stimulates the economy and brings prosperity. the tax rate can then be restored and the increased revenues used to pay back what was borrowed. at least that's the idea of a stimulative tax cut, as i understand it. i'm certainly no economist though. anyway i don't think that is what the bushies are up to though.

Orthodox economic theory holds that raising taxes kills jobs and cutting taxes creates them. But in the 16 months after the passage of the 1993 Clinton budget plan, which raised marginal income tax rates on the highest earners, payrolls rose from 110.96 million to 115.92 million. In other words, the biggest tax increase in American history "created" nearly 5 million jobs in less than a year and a half. In the 22 months since President Bush signed his tax cuts in June 2001, the number of payroll jobs has fallen from 132.11 million to 130.41 million in March 2003. In other words, the biggest tax cut in American history has so far "cost" us 1.7 million jobs and counting. So, the nation has lost 1.7 million jobs over the past two years after adding 5 million jobs in 1999 and 2000. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, there are 2.5 job seekers for every job opening. Unemployment is at an eight-year high and expected to grow. Ten million unemployed workers want jobs but cannot find them. More than 4 million work only part time because they cannot get full-time positions. More than 2 million unemployed workers have run out of their regular state-provided unemployment benefits and the emergency unemployment benefits they received under the temporary federal program. Many of these workers now have no jobs—and no means of support. Sounds like a good plan to me.

40 years of histroy can't be wrong... Every time we have a massive tax cut, we have an economic boom a year or three later. The only reason we havn't had much of one after the last Bush tax cut was we got the tax relief right before 9/11, and that scared people (for obvious reasons). The effects of an administration actually begin to show around the time we have a re-election, around 4 years or so, so watch for the laaaag. And you thought lag was only an Internet thang...

One other thing... the US$ is simply virtual anyway. I urge all of you to do a little research on your (non-federal) Federal Reserve System. A good place to start is the URL I listed above. The dollar you hold in your hand is not even worth the ~$0.03 of materials it is printed on. DAMN THE MAN! FIGHT THE POWER!

The only reason we havn't had much of one after the last Bush tax cut was we got the tax relief right before 9/11... Much of one? Much? Government debt and economic indicators have continued to plumet at record rates. While I'll concur that economic stimulus plans may have a lag period before tangible results, generally things start to at least move in the right direction. Since Bush took office in January 2001, some 2.7 million jobs have been lost from private-sector payrolls, including more than half a million February through April of this year alone, according to the government's own statistics. The most optimistic projections see a recovery of only 1.5 million jobs by the end of 2004 - and I think that is really being optimistic. A good friend of mine works overseas in international arbitrage. He says many investors are on the verge of treating the US as a Banana Republic. Once the dollar starts to devalue internationally, we are all in big trouble.