GOP yes’s on stimulus-contact info. Go get em !
I know the stimulus package is likely a done “Yes” for Collins, Snowe and Specter; but I’m taking one last chance and if you wish to as well; here’s a good how-to. Now, their voice mail is full; so you probably wont get any answer until Monday; but here are their email forms and fax number and the write up I sent. Feel free to fill their in boxes and fax machines. The House GOP held the line, the least I could do is make some phone calls; how about you ?
Collins: 202-224-2553, fax – (202) 224-2693
http://collins.senate.gov/public/continue.cfm?FuseAction=ContactSenatorCollins.Email&CFID=39113496&CFTOKEN=99427497Specter: 202-224-4254, fax – 202-228-1229
http://specter.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.ContactFormSnowe: 202-224-5344, fax – (202) 224-1946
http://snowe.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactSenatorSnowe.EmailI know that there is an ongoing debate over what continued government stimulus packages will do and you are thinking to vote for the current package. As a long time republican, taxpayer and future parent, I hope that you will not for my and your children’s sake.
I give you a short write up on what does work(tax cuts) and what the current Stimilus package will cause(Japan, 1990). I hope it will help you change your mind. Feel free to pass it on if you deem it worthy.
I’m just going to pass on a few facts here, so that everyone reading has some details on why tax cuts work and more spending will not.
Taking the spending of the great depression first:
“From 1930 to 1940, federal spending tripled in volume as new programs were created and old ones expanded in a costly effort to revive the collapsing economy. As a share of the gross domestic product (GDP), federal spending rose from 3.4 percent in 1930 to 9.8 percent in 1940.5 Yet, despite this unprecedented surge in spending, America’s GDP fell by 27 percent part way through the decade and by 1938 was less than two percent above its 1929 level.6″
“The number of unemployed more than doubled from 2.8 million at the beginning of the decade to 6.9 million in 1940.7″
So, as you can see; years of government spending accomplished little during the great depression. So far, government spending is 0 for 1 on causing a recovery.
Now, to the 1960’s and democratic president JFK’s tax cuts; results:
“Inheriting a sluggish economy when he took office in 1961, President Kennedy learned from these lessons and instead relied on a massive tax cut to get the economy going again. It worked; inflation-adjusted GDP grew by 50.5 percent during the 1960s, a postwar record for decade-over-decade growth rates.”
This makes tax cuts 1 for 1 on recoveries, and then the Reagan tax cuts:
“The 1981 tax cuts of President Reagan led to what then became the longest peacetime economic expansion in U.S. history.”
Now, tax cuts are 2 for 2. So, let’s add spending restraint to lower tax rates introduced by Reagan and those results ? More economic growth:
“The federal government’s share of GDP fell from 22.3 percent in 1991 during the brief recession that marked the beginning of the decade to 18.2 percent by 2000.8 Because of the restraint on federal spending, which allowed resources to shift to the more productive private sector, the economy boomed and a new American record was set for the duration of an expansion.”
So, tax cuts and decreasing spending have a perfect record for economic recovery. Now, what is the ongoing spending going to do for the US ? We need only look back 20 years to see as Japan implemented the same policies:
“Beginning in 1991-1992, Japan adopted the spending approach now advocated by many in the U.S. Congress when it embarked on a massive nationwide program of infrastructure investment. Between 1992 and 2000, Japan implemented 10 separate spending stimulus packages in which public infrastructure investment was a major component.9.
Between 1992 and 1999, industrial production in Japan increased by just 0.7 percent, while in the United States it increased by 39.6 percent.”
This is a time period of the US reigning in spending and Japan increasing spending which resulted in a decreased GDP for Japan and each individual citizen:
“Japan began gradually to close the GDP gap beginning in the late 1970s, when its standard of living was about 72 percent of that of the United States. By 1991, its standard of living had risen to nearly 90 percent of that of the United States.15 During this period, Japan’s level of government spending in proportion to its economy, while rising, was still the lowest of the major industrial countries.
Had Japan continued with this policy of fiscal restraint and low taxes, its per capita income (adjusted for PPP) would likely have overtaken America’s by the mid-1990s. But 1991 was also the beginning of the Japanese government’s spending spree and the country’s relative, and then absolute, decline.
After coming within 12 percentage points of matching U.S. per capita GDP, Japan’s relative performance began its inexorable decline and fell to a 78 percent share by 1999, a milestone it had surpassed–on the way up–only 12 years earlier. More important, the standard of living also fell in absolute terms. After reaching a per capita, PPP-adjusted GDP of $25,373 in 1997, that measure fell to $24,314 in 1998 and remained below $25,000 in 1999.”
It’s quite obvious that the current spending policies will only lengthen the recession further. You might pass this on or share it with those against and in favor of the stimulus as the recession will continue until the current leaders in Washington, D.C. change to what does work.
Based on Heritage article: http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/BG1495.cfm