More Bang For Your Buck

Take it easy guys. This post is not about getting more time with your favorite hooker.

There is an interesting figure in an article over at Mother Jones about stimulating the economy. The figure shown below is supposedly from Moody 's Ecomony.com and congressional testimony.

It shows what kind of return you get for each dollar put into the economy. The top earner is food stamps. The second one is extending unemployment benefits, and the third one is infrastructure. In other words, give money to those who need it the most. They will turn around and put it back into the economy.

At the bottom are corporate tax cuts, making Bush income tax cuts permanent, and accelerated depreciation. These items put money into the hands of people and institutions that already have money. They do not turn right around and spend it. As a result the economy benefits very little.

So, who supports the best ideas and who supports the poorest ideas? Given what has happened over the past 8 years, none of this should come as any surprise.