You know what's a total waste? Not working.
The stimulus was not a waste. It was not big enough; it it had been, the economy might have been rolling on its own by now. It was not structured well; a third of it was tax cuts, not spending.
Lowering corporate and individual tax rates, as Romney proposes, won't cause more money to come into the government; it will lead to exactly the opposite. If there was a good reason to expect that lower taxes would lead to a sudden explosion of economic activity, resulting in more jobs and more money and hence more to tax, then I'd be all for it. There is no reason to think so, though. The economy has been swimming in cheap money for a couple of years, and it hasn't caused companies to invest in growth or rich people to make risky bets on expansion. If you allow them to keep more of the profits instead of taxing them, then they'll just have more money, with no more reason to take a risk and hire more people and bet that somebody will be willing to buy the extra production. They won't invest, take risks, because they're scared, and they won't make expansionary bets until they are confident it will pay back. That's why banks and rich guys are buying government bonds that pay 2%. It's safer, and being safe trumps trying to get richer, these days. Besides, productivity has gone up, and a fixed number of more productive workers leads to more profit. Greed ain't the incentive it used to be.
In an atmosphere like this, the only thing that will make companies hire more people is a sure thing, like a government order for goods and services. Is that wasteful? If the money is spent for roads and maintenance on public structures, or for putting people through productive occupational education, then it's an investment that ought to repay itself in a more efficient infrastructure and workforce. It it's spent to finance tax cuts, then it's less clear what good is being done. What's clearly a waste is if people don't go back to work, whether for government or private industry, whether for stimulus or for the sake of private investment.
