Lis woke up this morning and said . . .

So, the alarm goes off, and Lis says, "In my dream, you and I were talking about how to get to New York to see a new musical -- Hellboy. With Jodie Foster as Liz."

"Wow. I would TOTALLY go see that if they made that in real life."

"We'd seen a little clip from previews. They were doing a noir musical. It started out with a noir feel, and then a darkened stage -- and then you saw a match flare and a cigar glow . . . and then Hellboy's hand caught on fire, and the stage lights up to show him."

"That's awesome."

"Yeah. They were doing a detective-pulp-noir-Hellboy musical. Anyway, you and I were discussing whether we really liked Jodie Foster for the role of Liz, or if we'd have preferred Ally Sheedy."

"Can she sing?"

"Can Jodie Foster sing? It was a dream."

"All I can say, Lis, is that you, asleep, come up with better ideas for musicals than anybody on Broadway."

"What, you don't like Thriller: the Musical?"

"Oooh! Howabout Hellboy vs. Thriller: The Musical!"

"Hellboy could snap that twiggy little Michael Jackson werewolf in half."

"Yeah. But wouldn't you pay money to see that?"

Can some of the fiscal conservatives on my friends list answer this:

Okay.

Here's how I see it.

So, nine years ago, the economy was, well, okay. There were problems, some of which we didn't see, largely having to do with not enough regulation of the financial sector (people asked the SEC to investigate Bernie Madoff back in the Clinton administration; subprime mortgage backed securities and even wackier things were invented and nobody knew how they worked but everyone used them anyway). So, the way I see it, many of the problems were because Clinton was too pro-business and hands-off, and not, well, liberal enough. If Clinton had done more Democratic things like watch over the markets carefully and reign in business, the problems would be less bad today.

But, unemployment was under control, we had strong economic growth. And we had a budget SURPLUS with which we were, for the first time since, well, Nixon. Carter tried to get it under control, but couldn't. So, since Nixon, every Republican President has increased the deficit; both Democrats have decreased it, although Carter wasn't able to eliminate it.

So. W comes in, and says, "we have a surplus: tax cuts."

And the economy tanks.

So W says, "the economy sucks: tax cuts."

The economy worsens,.

So, now the Republicans are trying to say that tax cuts will get us out of the economic crisis.

But, from where I'm sitting, it looks like tax cuts got us INTO it.

So, what's the logic here, "Tax cuts got us into this mess, so tax cuts will get us out?"

During the Regan years, the rich got richer, but the economy really didn't get that much better in general from what I could see from where I was sitting. During the first Bush's administration, things got worse.

From what I've seen my entire life, tax cuts make the economy worse, and not having tax cuts makes the economy better.

Can any fiscal conservatives convince me otherwise?

Highlights of the economic stimulus plan:

Looking over the AP's summary of the Obama economic stimulus plan, I see lots and lots of good things that are overdue to be done.

But I'm not clear on how any of them will actually stimulate the economy.

yehoshua, this is so specifically for you.

http://www.jewishtartan.com/index.htm
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