Even if for some reason you think industry-specific tax cuts are bad, most of the stimulus cuts are not industry-specific. The examples you used are the $3 billion cash for clunkers (if you can call that a tax credit), and the recently expanded first time homebuyers tax credit, which looks like it's projected to cost around 20$ billion total. In contrast, the alternative minimum income tax patch and the general income tax cuts for all workers are expected to add up to around 180$ billion. So more than 80% of the stimulus tax credits are spread out as tax cuts for individuals. This does reach all sectors of the economy.
I'm not arguing the reasons, that's just how it is. Running a deficit is not necessarily a bad thing, it depends on the details. Most states are not even allowed to have a small deficit, while the federal government is allowed to reach dangerously high levels of debt.
Clearly a 100% tax rate and a 0% tax rate both lead to a revenue of zero. Somewhere in between is a maximum level of revenue for the government, and I think it is significantly higher than where we are now, as do most economists. Obviously this maximum shouldn't be our goal because that would be very hard on many people.
Because I've seen important programs being cut in the past. If I were in charge of a state and I had to trim 20% off it's budget, I wouldn't know where to take it from. Would you? Let's take the largest state, California, as an example. Which parts of its budget would you cut?
In this case it is all borrowed from future economies. I think that's reasonable to do if you are trying to stave off a depression, which was what we were worried about.
Sounds correct.
You have hit the limits of my economic knowledge. I will have to learn about capital markets. Does this come down to worries about inflation and interest rates?
I don't really care what you call it. I buy the argument that even though there will be a depressant effect when the government spending ends, recovery will be faster overall than without it because it minimizes the number of businesses that failed at the same time during the first couple years. Further, the vast majority of the non-tax-break price tag goes to vital things like education, food, medicine, and the repairing of our crumbling national infrastructure. Overall it seems like a net good thing to me.
