But, Japan has had a 10-year recession. The argument that a tax cut could be an insurance policy against a prolonged recession is not crazy. If we passed something this year, you'd start to see effects next year.
Distribution is a very complicated issue.
If we cut the income tax, the fact is the bottom half of the income distribution isn't going to get anything unless you make things refundable. That's the way I would prefer to proceed at the bottom half. A payroll tax cut has very appealing distributional features. The folks in the bottom half who don't pay income tax would get the cut, and they are clearly folks who need the money the most. But if we cut the income tax, if we're going to talk distribution, I think we should at least allow for dynamic effects in the policy.