Quote:
Originally posted by Spanky
This is true. I never said this wasn't ture.
I don't care what the lay people say. We were talking about Economists. The debate among economists is when are tax cuts effective at producing growth. There is a tension between tax cuts and deficits. The goal is maximum growth, and the argument is where spending and taxation produce the optimal result. Supply Siders just think deficits are not as bad at detering growth as other economists. They also think tax cuts spur growth in more circumstances than other economists.
But the goal is always growth. Once you have admitted that a certain economic policy on balance has produced more growth than would have occurred with out it, then you are saying that policy was a good thing. The only effective economic argument against the Bush tax cuts is that on balance the tax cuts did not produce as much growth as would have occured without them. In other words, the resulting deficits crowded out so much private investment that growth was hurt and we would have pulled out of the recession quicker absent the tax cuts.
But once you concede the tax cuts brought in more growth than would have occurred without them, from an Economists perspective, the debate over the utility of Bush's tax cuts is over.
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Every now and then, I find myself wishing that I lived in a world filled with simple answers. Iraq=terrorism=evil, so war is good. Tax cut=growth=revenue, so tax cuts are good. Life is so simple! Economics is all laid out in a nice simple box isolated from all the other messy things. Deer nibble on the brush in the backyard and all is good.
Then I read my 5 year old a book, and delight in watching him ask question after question, discovering the beauty and interest of a world without easy answers.
