Every $1 spent on food stamps resulted in $1.73 in GDP growth

Re:Every $1 spent on food stamps resulted in $1.73 in GDP gr... by barney54 on Thursday February 23, 2012 @11:58AM (#3625662)

You are forgetting that tax dollars have to come from somewhere. the money has to be taken from one group of people or financed. Those activities are not costless. This is one of the reason why other studies find that reducing government spending stimulates growth (some of those studies are described here: http://mercatus.org/publication/does-government-spending-aff...)

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Re:Every $1 spent on food stamps resulted in $1.73 in GDP gr... by nerfhammer on Thursday February 23, 2012 @12:10PM (#3625711)

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Mercatus_Center

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Re:Every $1 spent on food stamps resulted in $1.73 in GDP gr... by vannevar on Thursday February 23, 2012 @02:07PM (#3626234)

The article you cite actually makes the same observation that there isn't a consensus:

This lack of consensus in the empirical findings indicates the inherent difficulties with measuring such correlations [between government spending and GDP] in a complex economy.

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Re:Every $1 spent on food stamps resulted in $1.73 in GDP gr... by fennecfoxen on Thursday February 23, 2012 @12:06PM (#3625692)

My objection is that all too often you see the attitude that because some baseline level of government spending is good and profits the economy (and society), that Program XYZ I Just Proposed For Widows And Orphans[tm] is also good.

And most fiscal conservatives have better things to conserve than food stamps. Let's talk about where the money really goes. Oh, wait, white elephant in the room.

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