Follow this link to a lecture given by Robert H. Frank.

In the lecture he explains one of the main thrusts of his book, The Economic Naturalist’s Field Guide: Common Sense Principles For Troubled Time. If you don’t know where he is going, the lecture may seem to drag a bit, even though he is humorous.  I think it is worth it to stick it out.

He explains why the Bush tax cuts that went mostly to the wealthy were not good even for the wealthy.  It also explains why they didn’t do much to stimulate an economy that didn’t need stimulation at the time anyway.  In some respects this is even more convincing argument in the current economy  than the argument that you need to give tax cuts to the middle and lower classes because they will spend more of it than the wealthy.

It’s not only a question of how much they spend, but what they spend it for.  Even the lower classes are likely to misspend some of the money than if the money were used for the investments proposed by the President’s stimulus plan.