"Obama Eyes $310 Billion in Tax Cuts" the headline blares. The Obama team comes to town to start the new year, and the run-up to his inauguration, with this announcement. How sly.

This Obama tax cut package is to be part of the broader stimulus package now estimated to cost $775 billion. The problem is that there are tax cuts and there are tax cuts, and there are other things Obama calls tax cuts that are not even tax cuts. The "tax cuts" Obama is proposing for his stimulus package, like the rest of his stimulus package, are not going to stimulate anything.

Tax cuts do not stimulate the economy by "putting money in people's pockets" which they can then spend, as even some Republicans, including George Bush, mistakenly say. That's an old-fashioned Keynesian strategy, and, if it worked, the same result could be achieved by sending out increased welfare checks, which also puts money in people's pockets, which they can spend. But it doesn't work, because it doesn't do anything to change the basic incentives governing the economy, and because just borrowing money and then sending it out to people, in "tax rebate" checks or welfare checks, doesn't add anything to the economy on net.

Tax cuts stimulate the economy when they involve reductions in tax rates. The reduction in rates improves incentives for savings, investment, business creation and expansion, job creation, entrepreneurship, and work, by allowing people to keep a greater percentage of the reward produced by these activities. This improves the economy not just by the dollar amount of the tax cut. The improved incentives affect every economic decision and every dollar in the entire economy. The astoundingly successful Reagan tax cuts in the 1980s, as well as the astoundingly successful Kennedy tax cuts of the 1960s, were both based on reducing tax rates, and were successful for these reasons.

But the Obama tax cut package studiously avoids any reductions in tax rates anywhere. The centerpiece of the plan is a $500 per worker tax credit, estimated to cost $150 billion. The government will just borrow $150 billion from the private economy to give away in these tax credits, so there will be no net gain to the economy. Nor will there be any improved incentives to save, or invest, or start or expand a business, or hire new workers. The credit does not even provide increased incentives to work, because once the worker is over a very low income threshold of about $8,000 per year, the amount of the credit does not increase for increased work and income.

Notice that these arguments apply even for workers who do pay considerable income taxes. Suppose you work and earn enough to pay $5,000 per year in income taxes. The Obama tax credit will reduce your income taxes by $500. In this case, the credit is a real tax cut. But it still will not stimulate the economy for the reasons stated above, it does not add to the economy on net and it does not improve incentives. It is a Keynesian tax cut, not a supply-side tax cut, because it is a flat cash rebate, effectively the same as more government spending, not a reduction in rates.

Keynesians think that the way to increase economic growth is to increase deficits and government spending. We tried that in the 1970s, and we got inflation along with ever worsening recessions. We tried it in the 1930s, and we got the Great Depression lasting for over 10 years. It doesn't work.

Indeed, the Wall Street Journal news story on the Obama tax package says regarding this $500 per worker tax credit, "This part of the plan is similar to a bipartisan initiative launched in early 2008, which sent out checks worth $131 billion." Precisely. Bush and the Democrats joined together a year ago to agree on a stimulus package sending out $131 billion in "tax rebates" to workers all across the country. Those tax rebates were very similar to Obama's tax credits today. They involved no reduction in tax rates, or improved incentives anywhere. They were based on a Keynesian rationale, just like Obama's tax credits -- stimulate the economy by increasing government deficits and providing cash rebates for people to spend.

And, of course, that tax rebate stimulus package from a year ago didn't work. The economy continued to worsen throughout the year, and financial markets collapsed in the fall. Henry Paulson was back in September asking for another $700 billion, to save the economy supposedly from complete collapse, and another Depression.

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