[Huck]

And the problem with "long term" effects of debt is that there are just too many economic variables long term: in the Clinton years, he raised taxes and got a boom . . . because the price of oil was VERY low; computers began to drive productivity up everywhere; and a vast new market opened in Eastern Europe. Clinton had nothing to do with any of that, but it certainly minimized the entire U.S. fiscal policy.

I agree with that. What it really means is that the US economy doesn't care too much if the top rate is 36 or 39. The big hoopla about the Bush tax cuts is kind of overdone. It was pretty small.

[LS]

Absolutely. The tax cuts were tiny, but like all tax cuts, they do have an incentive effect. It's like if you start paying double time for all overtime instead of time and a half---watch the overtime hours go up.