The Psychology of Immediate Political Gratification (extended tax cuts)

Immediate versus deferred gratification is a well known characteristic of human and political psychology. Getting tax cuts and extended unemployment benefits now and letting the future worry about paying off public debt is a contrapositive example of that trait.

The present Congressional descent in public debt about 14 trilllion dollars and increasing is perhaps the best historical example of the unwillingness to pay up front what will cost a lot more if deferred. People prefer immediate rather than deferred gratification even when the immediate reward is of significantly less value.

Letting the Bush II era tax cuts would cost more now, yet historically such tax increases are used to recover from recession, depression or finance war. Presently the United States has war and a recession like economy and should raise taxes. The deferred gratification is a healthy economy later on rather than one possibly moving toward the brink of cascading insolvency, social service cuts and depression.

Paul Glimcher and Joseph Cable published an article on the phenomena of human psychological preference for immediate gratification rather than a better financial gratification in the future when given a choice. (ref. December 2007 Nature Neuroscience).

In reading this 2010 book 'Wisdom' by Stephen Hall one may encounter several concepts that can be applied to the current bad federal national economic legislation.