Influential economist John Maynard Keynes once said about economic stimulus, "The government should pay people to dig holes in the ground and then fill them up." This was a facetious comment, but one that's haunted Keynesian economics ever since. Conservatives use that quote, along with the left's long adherence to Keynesian economic principles, as proof of the folly of "tax and spend liberals." Give money to the government and they'll just waste it with pointless spending.But what Keynes actually meant was that when the only entity providing jobs is the government -- i.e., a recession or depression -- then the government should find ways to provide more jobs. It doesn't make much difference what those jobs are, since the idea is to inject money into the economy. In a country like the United States, where infrastructure has always been a non-priority, you're not going to have any trouble finding holes to fill. We've got bridges falling down, trains failing to run, and levees giving out. No one will ever have to dig holes to to be filled, but in the hypothetical case that this is the only job available, then that's the job that should be provided.
See, economics -- in the broadest terms -- has boiled down to two competing theories; demand-side and supply-side. The problem with supply-side economics is that no one's ever actually gotten it to work. With demand-side Keynesianism, we got out of the Great Depression... [CLICK TO READ FULL POST]
