Reality need not apply: Fox continues to deny aid to poor is stimulative
Fox News hosts and contributors have recently dismissed estimates of food stamp programs' stimulative effect on the economy as "some strange multiplier effect study," "liberal math" and a "complicated economic multiplier theory." In fact, economists agree that food stamps are one of "the most effective ways to prime the economy's pump."After 8 years of disastrous conservative economic policies you'd think conservatives would have learned their lesson. No way, they're lifetime subscribers to Bushnomics - the worse kind of supply side voodoo economics. It will always result in making the wealthy richer while making the middle-class and poor worse suffer. Sorry, Newt and Michelle: Democrats are the Party of Paychecks
Malkin, Gingrich and Varney all dismiss economic theory to continue attacking food stamps
Malkin falsely claims "the only thing that these programs stimulate, of course, is a bigger government." On the October 7 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, co-host Steve Doocy stated that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said of food stamps: "It is the biggest bang for the buck when you do food stamps and unemployment insurance." Fox News contributor Michelle Malkin replied by saying she would "like to know which economist [House Speaker Nancy Pelosi] is talking to. Of course, she's promoting some strange multiplier effect study to argue this." Malkin concluded by falsely claiming "the only thing that these programs stimulate, of course, is bigger government."
...Gingrich: "I don't understand how liberal math turns one dollar into $1.79." On the October 6 edition of Fox News' On the Record with Greta Van Susteren, Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich said:
I carry around a bumper sticker that says two plus two equals four, so I'd be very curious how a dollar given to somebody becomes $1.79. And I think if we could get that to work at the U.S. Treasury, so if people gave the treasury $1,000, it became $1,790, we could pay off the federal debt and never worry about spending or anything. Somehow, I don't understand how liberal math turns one dollar into $1.79.
Economists widely acknowledge stimulative nature of food stamps
Elmendorf: "Nutrition assistance" would "have a significant impact on GDP." In January 27, 2009, written testimony before the House Budget Committee, CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf stated that "[t]ransfers to persons (for example, unemployment insurance and nutrition assistance) would ... have a significant impact on GDP." He added: "Because a large amount of such spending can occur quickly, transfers would have a significant impact on GDP by early 2010. Transfers also include refundable tax credits, which have an impact similar to that of a temporary tax cut."
Zandi: "[E]xtending food stamps are the most effective ways to prime the economy's pump." In his July 24, 2008, written testimony before the House Committee on Small Business, economist Mark Zandi, who advised John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign, stated that "extending food stamps are [sic] the most effective ways to prime the economy's pump." Zandi further explained: "People who receive these benefits are very hard-pressed and will spend any financial aid they receive within a few weeks. These programs are also already operating, and a benefit increase can be quickly delivered to recipients." Zandi included with his testimony a table stating that a "Temporary Increase in Food Stamps" had the highest "Fiscal Economic Bank for the Buck" of any other potential stimulus provision he analyzed, providing a $1.73 increase in real GDP for every dollar spent.
...* On the September 16 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, Stuart Varney attacked the unemployed by falsely claiming that rises in disability were due to the unemployed committing fraud. In fact, what led to the increase in claims from 2008 to 2009 was legislation that President Bush signed into law in 2008, which changed the ways that the requirements for being disabled could be interpreted. The growth in the program was expected and is the result of intentional changes to policy which make it easier to qualify.
* During the September 29 edition of Fox & Friends, co-host Gretchen Carlson asked "when will the government turn off government spending and extend tax cuts to stimulate the private sector." Carlson was referring to a program that "directly paid the salaries of unemployed people so they could get jobs in government, at nonprofit organizations and at many small businesses.
For the investor class so fond of perpetuating the myth of Republicans' superior economic stewardship, the collapse of the stock marketing during the Bush recession must be particularly galling. The Standard & Poor's 500 spiraled down at annual rate of 5.6% during Bush's time in the Oval Office, a disaster even worse than Richard Nixon's abysmal 4.0% yearly decline. (Only Herbert Hoover's cataclysmic 31% plunge makes Bush look good in comparison.)Malkin - who says she is a journalists is apparently afraid of facts. Newt is not only afraid of them he has spent his entire adult life as a con man selling conservative snake oil.
As it turns out, as the New York Times also showed in October 2008, the Democratic Party "has been better for American pocketbooks and capitalism as a whole." To make its case, the New York Times asked readers to imagine having put their money where its mouth is. Contrary to Republican mythology, Americans fare better - much, much better - under Democratic administrations:
As of Friday, a $10,000 investment in the S.& P. stock market index would have grown to $11,733 if invested under Republican presidents only, although that would be $51,211 if we exclude Herbert Hoover's presidency during the Great Depression. Invested under Democratic presidents only, $10,000 would have grown to $300,671 at a compound rate of 8.9 percent over nearly 40 years.
(For the eye-popping chart of the S&P's performance under each of the presidents from Hoover through Bush 43, visit here.)
