An exchange here on the site lead me to do something I don't any more often than I absolutely have to... I launched Newsmax.com, the swelteringly conservative website and magazine based in South Florida.
It came in the form of a Ben Stein column (he'll always be the Ferris Bueller teacher to me) called "Raising Taxes is the Adult Thing to Do." Wow.
How does this lauded conservative describe the 30-year experiment in supply side economics from which we are still, definitively, suffering?
In fact, said this theory, if you lowered taxes, the supply of capital and labor provided to the economy would grow so much that even with lower tax rates, the government would collect more revenue than at higher rates. The American people would no longer have to act like responsible adults. They could have their fiscal cake and eat it, too. They could, in essence, eat all the ice cream they wanted and lose weight.
It was a beautiful, hypnotically lovely theory. But it did not work. The lower taxes did not stimulate the economy so much that tax revenues grew. (Indeed, it would not have been arithmetically possible to do so — there just are not enough hours in a year to have more work done to make up for the tax cuts that were proposed.)
And then, the money quote:
It is a complete myth that our economy will collapse if we raise taxes — even substantially raise taxes — on well-off people (incomes of $500,000 or above, I would say). We have plenty of capital, and raising taxes has no history at all of shutting down investment and supply of labor... We have a choice — act like serious people, raise our taxes, keep our military strong, retain our freedom. Or keep taxes low until the Chinese take over the tax system — and everything else.
The whole piece is pretty interesting -- I don't agree with every word, but there's a lot in it for folks of all political persuasions to at least stop and think about for a minute. Just like Mr. Stein, I think it's time for the GOP and Congress to grow up and start to treat this country's problem with serious solutions.
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