Back in 2009 University of Chicago Professor and (now) Nobel prize-winner Eugene Fama wrote:
Bailouts and stimulus plans are funded by issuing more government debt.... The added debt absorbs savings that would otherwise go to private investment.... [S]timulus plans do not add to current resources in use. They just move resources from one use to another.... I come back to these fundamental points several times below....
The Sad Logic of a Fiscal Stimulus: In a "fiscal stimulus," the government borrows and spends the money on investment projects or gives it away as transfer payments to people or states. The hope is that government spending will put people to work.... Unfortunately, there is a fly in the ointment.... [G]overnment infrastructure investments must be financed -- more government debt. The new government debt absorbs private and corporate savings, which means private investment goes down by the same amount....
Suppose the stimulus plan takes the form of lower taxes... we can't get something for nothing this way either... lower tax receipts must be financed dollar for dollar by more government borrowing. The government gives with one hand but takes them back with the other, with no net effect on current incomes...
Fama’s argument is that the government cannot increase its total planned expenditure without somebody else decreasing their planned expenditure—that any cash the government spends must be either borrowed from or taxed from private individuals, who then must cut their planned expenditure by as much as the government increases its. This is, it seems to me, the doctrine called “Say’s Law”. Write a 20-minute essay trying to convince Professor Fama he is wrong.