While reading the editorial “Stimulus Plan will help U.S. despite concessions” in the Feb. 13 issue of The Scout, I was shocked by the misinformation presented.
It asserted that Democrats made too many compromises with Republicans in the new version of the stimulus bill. The truth is that Republicans are not excited over the Senate abolishing $83 billion of spending in the revised bill.
The stimulus currently has an $838 billion price tag, which is still $19 billion larger than the original House version, and the original House version is $30 billion more than the $789 billion the editorial cited.
Also, the editorial says of food stamps, “What else gives a 73 percent return? Not tax cuts.” According to Obama’s chairperson of the Council of Economic Advisers, Christina Romer, that statement is correct. She wrote in a 2007 paper that tax cuts “have very large and persistent output effects,” and her model shows that $1 of tax cuts produces $3 of growth.
The output of tax cuts is clearly much higher than food stamps. Food stamps do not stimulate the economy, they hurt the economy. The store employees, the farmers who grow the food and the truck drivers who deliver the food are definitely going to feel the hit.
Even more of their hard earned income will go towards taxes to pay for the expansion of food stamps. This stimulus bill will have a huge and immediate effect on Peoria in the form of significantly higher taxes.
Editor’s note: The stimulus package was passed Feb. 13 with a cost of $787 billion.
Stephanie Falash
Senior music major
