Hey Mr. “Libertarian-Republican” - I have an idea.
How about we REDUCE the size of government and thereby reduce government spending. Then, the government will not need as much revenue and the “Laffer Curve” gets smaller, with “t” itself shifting to the left. Then taxes can be reduced until the new, lesser “t” is hit.
Got that? REDUCE government spending by reducing the size of the government!
THAT used to be part of the Republican economic plan also, didn’t it?
Um, WayneS... perhaps you missed the following parts of the article???
“So what does all this mean? Should we raise taxes so we can get near that magic “t” line and optimize our tax revenue?
No. Of course not - that is absurd. In fact, I’d love to see taxes whacked down further, by a lot.”
“Why get your hands dirty cutting school lunch programs et all when you honestly believe your revenue stream will be better if you cut taxes anyway?
Its not. We can’t just cut taxes and wash our hands of things. It doesn’t work like that at this level anymore - not on the left side of the curve.”
“We should want to drive that Laffer Curve as far left as possible so that as many people can keep as much of their own money as possible.
But, by ignoring the actual effect of cutting taxes, it has left Republicans everywhere with the assumption that they won’t have to get their hands dirty with that nasty business of cutting government spending.”
“The budget has to be balanced. We can no longer spend like this - its simply Chinese monopoly money at this point, and we have to start to retire the debt.
We’ll never get there by cutting taxes, and then retiring to the study for a smoke and a congratulatory foot massage. We have to get elbow deep in the messy work of taking the red pen to the federal monster. We have got to cut taxes and also cut spending, to get our budget back in balance.
Cutting taxes and running away from the hard work is an ultimate act of political cowardice, and is one of the major reasons why George W. Bush’s presidency has been a disappointment.”
“We all know it isn’t true, not its time to be adults, be honest with ourselves about the reality of public policy, and push a fiscally conservative agenda that understands that reality and makes it work practically for the American people. Hack the tax code down as far as you possibly can, just understand what you’ll be doing to the budget, and plan your spending accordingly.
Cut it.”
The idea that somehow the article wasn’t calling for a massive cut in the size of government is foolish. It is, in fact, the driving thesis of the article.
It isn’t arguing that we’re to the left of the optimal “t” on the curve so we should stop cutting taxes - its an argument that says that the Republican rhetoric about tax cuts growing government revenues is at this point a joke, and relying on it being true and selling yourself on the idea that you don’t NEED to cut the size of government, because revenues will go up, has lead to our current deficit spending problem.
The article calls for small government conservative leaders to stop being cowards, and actually do the dirty work of cutting government if they want to cut taxes.
Everyone wants to cut taxes - so do I. But we can’t cut them unless we slash spending too, because in the end, all it will do if we do NOT do that is increase our debt, which will lead to a future tax increase, thus pretty much destroying the economy sometime in the future.
So, if we want tax cuts, dump the stupid rhetoric about it increasing revenues... that was true with 70% top rates, but it is a lot less true today. So lets be honest with both ourselves and the voters that our tax cuts are going to need to be used in concert with spending cuts.
If we don’t have the courage to actually cut spending, then cutting taxes is insanity. Hello 11 trillion dollars of debt.