Word: cuttingly
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2000
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...economic sense of this argument is, well, arguable. Interest-rate cuts take six months or longer to make a real impact on the economy, and Alan Greenspan implements those with a wave of his hand. Bush's tax cut faces a long road through Congress, and of course part of the argument he used during the campaign - back when everybody worried that it would overstimulate a red-hot economy - was that the cuts would be phased in so gradually that no one would notice...
...still won't be fast enough. If spring 2001 is indeed to be a season of recession, Alan Greenspan will have already waded in and out by the time the Bush tax cut gets to the negotiating phase. And if the landing is soft after all, then Greenspan will have saved us already...
...Greenspan has left Bush a handy platform in the meantime. A growing chorus of economists think Greenspan's last half-point hike in May was overkill, and that the slowdown is indeed happening too fast. The markets are demanding a full point of interest rate cuts from the Fed chairman in the next six months, and many expect him to begin with a surprise, pre-FOMC-meeting cut in the next few weeks, coming perhaps as soon as the next unemployment figures, due out in early January. That would only help Bush set a properly gloomy mood...
...these days, Americans and their politicians trust one economic oracle - and Greenspan is it. And Bush's tax cut will be a snowball in Palm Beach unless the Fed chairman gives it his blessing...
...Bush's people will remind Greenspan that giving back $1.6 trillion in tax cuts sure beats $1.6 trillion in new spending, and that if the budget gets tight a few years hence, a tax cut is a lot easier to ditch than an entitlement. And with the CBO's accountants drowning in black ink, taking the money off the table is a hedge against the bloated budgets of the future. Heck, it might even perk up the markets a little bit in the meantime...