Hey, there! Log in / Register
Thank God we're a two-paper town, federal-stimulus edition
By adamg on Mon, 04/12/2010 - 9:25am
Both the big local dailies wrote about an IRS processing center in Andover over the weekend. See if you can guess which paper wrote which story:
Topics:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Comments
I wonder, sometimes, whether
I wonder, sometimes, whether the Herald's reporters believe their own stories. Among the points omitted from the sensationalized coverage:
What I really, truly don't understand is the economic theory under which Coburn, McCain, and the Boston Herald seem to operate. Do they think, contrary to virtually all economists, that we should be reducing government spending during a downturn? The sort of spending they seem to love, renovating existing bridges, tunnels, and highways, is sometimes necessary, but achieves no longterm efficiencies. It creates short-term jobs. That's it. And it simply resets the cycle of maintenance, because all of that work will have to be done again in the future. And since the transportation infrastructure was already there, it doesn't create new opportunities, it just preserves what we already have. Channeling spending in a way that stimulates new economic sectors - areas like green construction - delivers precisely the same amount of economic stimulation in the short term, but also has salutary long term effects.
The IRS is easy to bash. But the truth is, it's an amazingly cost-effective bureaucracy. Its auditors earn back large multiples of their salaries for the federal coffers. Supporting their work, as at Andover, helps ensure that our system operates fairly, and that dodges and cheats don't stiff the rest of us with their portion of the tax bill. Why on earth would anyone oppose that?