Eh, It is certainly makes intuitive, logical sense stripped of any context (see below), but the caveats you would have to erect around are so numerous and interdependent that it would take a couple thousand words to even gloss the conditions when that would be a true statement. Otherwise the whole idea is just a shuck and jive and that’s been well established for 50+ years. It’s “Voodoo.”
even just the word “back” as used above is hugely problematic without conditions.
and I don’t blame you btw, that’s why I asked about an economic vocabulary.
Again, highly conditional. Marginal rates were super high (which you alluded to later), and the economy was stagnant, but more importantly we were literally on a completely different and much more restrictive monetary system. Again, it’s an intuitive comparison only if you don’t know or think about the fact that we literally don’t use the same money that we used then.
They aren’t controversial in economic circles. Nobody disputes that stimulus stimulates, and also nobody other than crackpots and politicians dispute that debt-funded stimulus during expansions that are directed towards asset price support doesn’t pay for itself via job creation or revenue. in other words, it’s just a tax on future productivity. That’s been understood for 50 years, outside of Republican politics. It was even understood in the Reagan White House.
Nope, it was asset prices the whole time- that’s why you could have a massive monetary expansion without cpi/ppi inflation. The vast majority never went into jobs. Had it gone into jobs, inflation would have been more of a problem from the 80s-2010’s
And that’s also why, btw, you saw a huge inflation spike when they did put the money in worker’s hands in 2021, combined with a supply shock. You had a bunch of money chasing not enough stuff, so prices adjusted, the unemployment rate dropped to nearly zero, and the economy boomed.
Like I said- it’s a shuck and jive. And they knew it at the time- this was crackpot stuff prior to Reagan, which is why Bush and old school fiscal conservatives were so horrified by it. But it was politically potent if you don’t know any better, and still is.