Reason Magazine interviews 10 economists on the Stimulus package- “Will We Be Stimulated?” complied by Nick Gillespie- Reason May 2009.
Here are some of the morsels offered:
“The genius of the American system, for all of its flaws, has been that we can mobilize lots of liquidity quickly. Silicon Valley exists because you could sit down, make a pitch, and get $10 million that afternoon. If we start governing finance…. we are going to lose that.”
“It redirects resources on a grand scale from uses consumers value to uses politicians value, and thereby impoverishes the general public.”
“A good stimulus package should be designed to move money out the door quickly, then stop. This program is designed to move money out the door slowly and keep going.”
“It’s not targeted, not temporary and not timely. Too slow.”
“Nothing in the package increases the incentive to work, save, invest, or increase productivity.”
“..it destroys savings by using them on projects that the majority did not think reasonable a year ago.”
“… it will have its largest impact after the economy has already turned the corner- so that it will contribute to another round of boom and bust.”
“… the economy will have recovered sufficiently (when it takes effect) by then so that the fiscal stimulus … might actually be destabilizing.”
“.. Obama says he doesn’t want to do tired old ideas and failed economics. But he is doing exactly what the Republicans did: huge deficit financed spending on useless or irrelevant programs designed to reward political friends.”
“..economic self- correcting resiliency works best in the abscence of government interference.”
“… the government fouled up the banking system (the most regulated part of the economy), so maybe the government should help clean up the mess.”
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