New Yorker :: Good Bye to All That
Article

> The Bush deficit satisfies all the requirements for a
> dangerous deficit. It is big and wasteful, and isn’t even
> an efficient way of stimulating the economy, since the
> wealthy tend to hoard their tax savings rather than
> spend them. Moreover, the deficit won’t disappear even
> when the economy is growing steadily. According to
> the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
> Development, an international research group, the so-
> called “structural budget balance,” which strips out the
> impact of the cycle, has gone from a surplus of 0.9 per
> cent of G.D.P. in 2000 to a deficit of four per cent of
> G.D.P. in 2003.

It's probably more fair to say that the wealthy don't hoard their tax savings, they invest them, thereby shifting the burden and privilege of resource allocation (the essential part of policy-making) from elected government representatives whose mandate is, theoretically, to serve society (the democratic -- and, to some extent, decision-market -- ideal) to corporate executives, boards of directors, and majority shareholders (i.e. elites) whose mandate is to maximize profit (in a system alternately known as plutocracy or most of Latin America.)
posted by Tomohiro Idokoro @ 8:05 AM

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