Deficit Spend or Bust

This morning on 100.3 FM WNOX's Hallerin Hilton Hill show, Dave Foulk interviewed University of Tennessee economist Mathew Murray. Mr. Murray's comments on national policy regarding the economy stated a few things. Included with his comments were the following:

1. The only option the government has to encourage the economy is deficit spending,
2. Tax cuts would create more debt.

His stance on what would be appropriate for government to do to rebound the economy is absolutely ridiculous. I've attended UT. I know there is drug use by a portion the students, but I had not realized this has spread to the faculty in the economics department. Government has spent money faster than the economy grew since about 2000. This is a reversal of the declining expenditure of money as a percentage of the GDP which has been occurring since the 1980's when TAXES WERE CUT. Murray is saying that if government spending is reduced along with tax cuts, this would not only be detriment to the economy but result in greater debt? The only way this could be true is that the "debt" he was speaking about would be the government taking out more loans or, the more likely scenario that when the economy rebounded from less spending and fewer taxes, people would borrow money due to the the benefit of their own personal finances allowing them to believe that they could competently repay such loans.

Public finance is not so complicated that you need economists to say what would be beneficial to the economy especially on the basic ideas. The single most influential factor in stimulating the economy is more money in the pockets of individuals. If people have money, they'll spend it. They will spend it on bills, food, consumer electronic devices, investing in the market, investing in business, paying employees, et-cetera. People retain the most money when the least amount is seized from them in the first place. Economists are needed only when one is trying to fine tune economic policy. It is outrageous that anyone could say that tax cuts would result in more debt. I'm not an economist, I just live in reality.


Really agree with what you read? Really disagree? Somewhere in the middle?....Let yourself be heard in the comments!
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