CEOs reveal why they're not hiring

So maybe fiscal stimulus won't help in the long run, but cutting taxes to the bone would be a disaster for sure. We tried this in the 1980s, and again from 2001-2010, funding tax cuts with deficits, and look where we are now. We can't afford it anymore. The party's over.

With consumers slow to spend, businesses are slow to hire

By Neil Irwin
August 21, 2010 | Washington Post

[...]

Many Democrats say the economy needs more stimulus. Business lobbyists and their Republican allies say it needs less regulation and lower taxes.

But here in the heartland of America, senior executives say neither side's assessment fits.

They blame their profound caution on their view that U.S. consumers are destined to disappoint for many years. As a result, they say, the economy is unlikely to see the kind of almost unbroken prosperity of the quarter-century that preceded the financial crisis.

Across the industrial parks and office towers of the Chicago region, in a more than a dozen interviews, senior executives said they see Americans for years ahead paying down debts incurred during the now-ended credit boom and adjusting spending to match their often-reduced incomes.

[...]

"It took us a decade to get in the ditch we are in. There isn't going to be instant gratification to get us out of it. We're going to have to get used to a lower growth economy, and that is going to be a big adjustment for all of us."