Typically, Republicans favor tax cuts, while democrats favor increases in government spending. There are economic rationales for both positions. Tax cuts put money into the pockets of consumers, who are better than the government at determining how resources should be allocated –this promotes “allocative efficiency” (from chapter 1). On the other hand, tax cuts have a lower multiplier effect than increases in government spending. This means that we get more economic stimulus from a given dollar value of government spending than the same dollar value in tax cuts.
The tradeoff here is between more efficiency (with tax cuts) vs. more economic stimulus (with government spending). Differences of opinion on this matter are cause for heated political debate and overblown political rhetoric.
So what do you think? Do you prefer economic stimulus from tax cuts or increases in government expenditure?