According to the Nov. 18th Intelligencer Journal, at Monday’s Chamber of Commerce luncheon Commissioner Scott Martin said: “‘This is a tough economy… but we’re going to avoid putting more taxes onto your plate.”
The article continues “While the county has substantial debt, [Commissioner Dennis] Stuckey said, projects such as building a new forensics center and a new prison must move forward.”
The commissioners are right in avoiding higher taxes and moving forward with projects that will provide jobs at a time when unemployment is rapidly increasing.
As Keynesian Economics teaches us, this is the time for deficit spending. Nothing is more wasteful than people and machinery standing idle for long periods of time. And every dollar of new spending, through the ‘multiplier effect’, generates about three dollars for the economy.
What is profligate is spending unnecessarily during times of minimal unemployment (4% or less), when government capital expenditures displaces private expenditures and thus adds to inflation.
