Remove Stossel from editorial page

I ask the Daily Herald to stop publishing John Stossel's columns. My request has nothing to do with his political leanings, but his general economic illiteracy.

His latest piece (Feb. 18) of ignorance was his suggesting that the federal government's economic stimulus plan "moves cash from one part of the economy to another without a positive effect on economic growth."

This perspective is simply unscientific. Any economist knows that a spending stimulus has a multiplier affect - a dollar spent causes a percentage of that dollar to be re-spent and spent again. The economic policies and data collection activities of federal administrations, both Republican and Democratic, have long mitigated the impact of recessions.

Take a look in a Paul Samuelson college economics textbook and one will find plenty of scientific evidence of the appropriateness of fiscal and monetary economic government policies. If economists and business leaders, such as Federal Reserve Chairperson Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulsen, believe the economic stimulus legislation will prompt economic growth, who is John Stossel to say fiscal and monetary measures have no affect on the economy? What rubbish thinking.

Maybe the Daily Herald editors think there is something humorous about Stossel's ignorance, but I expect enlightened and informed columnists to be published on the editorial pages, not columnists who, like Stossel, show their economic stupidity again and again and again.

Tom Teune

Wheaton