Cut taxes. Then raise them. I am so looking forward to voting in 2010.

Red Wall

To remedy these wrongs the socialists, working on the poor man’s envy of the rich, are striving to do away with private property, and contend that individual possessions should become the common property of all, to be administered by the State or by municipal bodies. They hold that by thus transferring property from private individuals to the community, the present mischievous state of things will be set to rights, inasmuch as each citizen will then get his fair share of whatever there is to enjoy. But their contentions are so clearly powerless to end the controversy that were they carried into effect the working man himself would be among the first to suffer. They are, moreover, emphatically unjust, for they would rob the lawful possessor, distort the functions of the State, and create utter confusion in the community. (paragraph 4 of Rerum Novarum, written in 1891!)

The Footnote Guy

But yes, monetary policy is a far more powerful instrument for responding to shocks in the economy, even more so if you believe some of Ben Bernanke’s research into credit view models of the economy (which, in the wake of the current downturn, are pretty well proven, at least in their basic concepts). The only case I can think of to the contrary were if you personally believe in strict Keynesian models of the economy (which not even Keynesians do anymore; most of them espouse something closer to the New Keynesian worldview) or if you were intending to use economic models to be deliberately disingenuous to the American public (far more likely).