"I regard myself as a supply-sider for sure," Rudy Giuliani told Larry Kudlow on March 27, "I watched Ronald Reagan do it and learned it, saw it work. Taxes get reduced, more revenue comes in." Thus, my latest column:
Taxes get reduced, more revenue comes in. It's a nice idea. Nice, but not true. What's more, it's known to be untrue. Reagan did try it, but it didn't work.Taxes get reduced, more revenue comes in. Again, this is something Republicans like to say -- but it isn't true, and people who follow politics closely all know it isn't true. Elections, however, are decided by the broad mass of voters, the vast majority of whom don't follow politics especially closely. For that, they turn to the professionals -- the corps of campaign correspondents working for the country's major newspapers and television networks.
These professionals do follow politics closely and use their years of experience in the field to write stories that provide meaningful information to their readers. Thus a person who doesn't follow politics all that closely and reads an article about how Giuliani puts a debunked theory at the heart of his economic policy will come away newly in possession of that key piece of information. "Giuliani: Crank or Liar?" reads the headline, as the author explores whether Giuliani is deliberately misleading people or just too dumb to know the truth. That's how the papers cover the story, because the papers are in the business of informing their readers about politics. It's a no-brainer.
I kid, of course.
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Heads in the Sand
Only problem with your argument here is the facts.
Government revenue today is higher than it was before the Bush supply-side tax cuts.
The deficit doesn't exist because of changes on the tax side, it exists because of shifts on the spending side.
Posted by Chris | April 3, 2007 10:16 AM