Today we learned up to 40% of the proposed stimulus plan for the economy that President-elect Obama is working on could be tax cuts/credits.  This amounts to about $300 billion over two years.  This would be a greater tax cut than even President Bush was able to come up with during his first 3 years in office.  President Bush’s 2001 tax cut of $1.35 trillion was set over 10 years and contained $174 billion during the first two years.  I wonder if Mr. Obama’s cut will have the same effect of jerking the economy from the recession as President Bush’s did in 2001 and again in 2003.  As is always the case in Washington, everyone has their hand out.  Part of the proposed tax cuts will allow businesses to write off current tax losses in 2009 and 2008 against previous income and receive refunds for taxes they paid in previous years when they were profitable.  One group wants this to go even further and suggests that the companies that really need the tax cut are those who don’t have any previous income such as many of the green energy companies that have yet to turn a profit.  Sounds like something I remember reading in Atlas Shrugged.  We can’t blame them just because no one wants to buy their overpriced inefficient products right?  It’s not their fault that coal power, nuclear power, natural gas… are more efficient and much more cheap than solar, wind, bio-fuel etc.  It’s only fair that the government gives them money to run a company that will inevitably lose that money again right…?

Last 3 posts by Jason

• You Can't Make This Stuff Up - February 19th, 2010
• Washington Gridlock - February 11th, 2010
• I Guess I'm Not the Only One Who Thought This - January 28th, 2010