President Obama set to announce tax cuts and fiscal stimulus
President elect Obama is set to head into office and hit the ground running with news of a multibillion-dollar fiscal stimulus package which it is claimed could create up to 4,000,000 jobs. Intriguingly the strategy is very similar to that undertaken by Gordon Brown in the UK, aside from the tax reductions which Obama wants to introduce. The similarities to the Gordon Brown scheme involve bringing forward and increasing the number of public sector projects to create and safeguard hundreds of thousands if not millions of public sector jobs.
However, even before he has entered office his new plans have attracted criticism with some senators uncertain as to how tax reductions can be used to stimulate the economy at a time when billions of dollars of investment are also required. There are concerns that not only will US debt start to increase again but taxpayers would be left to carry the burden in the future.
As with the UK we are starting to see the creation of a new trend with many governments around the world suggesting that the public sector is the key to future economic growth and recovery. However, many people, especially taxpayers, see this as the easy get out clause with significant concerns of tax increases to pay for increased public-sector spending in the future.
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