Paul Krugman, Economic Columnist, New York Times, 24 October 2001: At worst, war bonds will offer a lower return than ordinary bonds. And if some people buy them nonetheless, what will they finance? Here's where that tax bill enters the picture. The remarkable thing about the 'stimulus' package that passed the Ways and Means Committee on a straight party-line vote is that it barely even pretends to serve its ostensible function. It consists largely of permanent tax cuts, not the temporary cuts that you would expect in a stimulus package. It systematically gives money to those least likely to spend it, that is, to high-income taxpayers, and above all to large corporations. Some of the provisions in the House bill are simply mind-boggling. For example, there is a large *retroactive* tax cut for corporations that would lead to immediate rebates of hundreds of millions of dollars to *each* of a select list of giant companies, many of them in the energy industry (though the $1.4 billion check to I.B.M. would top the list). On the other hand, there is almost nothing in the bill for people who might actually need more money. The extra unemployment benefits, in particular, are far less generous than those offered in the last recession, when the elder Bush was president. The bill, in short, looks as if it was written by corporate lobbyists -- and it probably was. Even Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill was evidently embarrassed by the bill, dismissing its more outlandish components as 'show business' designed to impress campaign donors. But his remark was naove. Those lobbyists are serious men, who are paid by their employers to deliver results, not gestures; they wouldn't have put those provisions in unless they thought they had enough power to get them enacted. And sure enough, the White House soon contradicted Mr. O'Neill; the president, declared Ari Fleischer, was 'very pleased' with the House bill. Which brings us back to those war bonds. The government not only isn't calling for shared sacrifice; it is 'very pleased' with a proposal to give billions in handouts to corporations. And in that case, what is someone who buys a war bond really helping to finance? Put it this way: If the House has its way, the government will give far more in tax breaks to corporations over the next year than it will spend fighting terrorism. Yet somehow one suspects that people would not rush to buy 'corporate tax-cut bonds.'