"The Get America Working! approach would work, in effect, by correcting a major price distortion. The current U.S. Internal Revenue Code taxes employment far more heavily than it does the use of natural resources. This distortion has grown progressively worse as payroll taxes have grown. Revising this distortion would increase employment, equity and overall economic vigor importantly. And it would do so by responding to market price signals, not through clumsy and expensive government interventions."
My Preferred Fiscal Stimulus
Date:
Fri, 02/05/2010
Source:
Greg Mankiw's Blog
In this blog posting Harvard economist Greg Mankiw outlines what he would do "if her were the fiscal king." His lead item:
"I would institute an immediate and permanent reduction in the payroll tax, financed by a gradual, permanent, and substantial increase in the gasoline tax. I would make the two tax changes equal in present value, so while the package results in a short-run budget deficit, there is no long-term budget impact. Call it the create-jobs, save-the-environment, reduce-traffic-congestion, budget-neutral tax shift."
