Tax Cuts Don't Boost Revenues - TIME

Sorry, not directly a single-payer post, but I have to keep track of this stuff somewhere!

Tax Cuts Don't Boost Revenues - TIME: "If there's one thing that Republican politicians agree on, it's that slashing taxes brings the government more money. 'You cut taxes, and the tax revenues increase,' President Bush said in a speech last year. Keeping taxes low, Vice President Dick Cheney explained in a recent interview, 'does produce more revenue for the Federal Government.' Presidential candidate John McCain declared in March that 'tax cuts ... as we all know, increase revenues.' His rival Rudy Giuliani couldn't agree more. 'I know that reducing taxes produces more revenues,' he intones in a new TV ad.

If there's one thing that economists agree on, it's that these claims are false. We're not talking just ivory-tower lefties. Virtually every economics Ph.D. who has worked in a prominent role in the Bush Administration acknowledges that the tax cuts enacted during the past six years have not paid for themselves--and were never intended to. Harvard professor Greg Mankiw, chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisers from 2003 to 2005, even devotes a section of his best-selling economics textbook to debunking the claim that tax cuts increase revenues.

The yawning chasm between Republican rhetoric on taxes and even informed conservative opinion is maddening to those of wonkish bent. Pointing it out has become an opinion-column staple. But none of these screeds seem to have altered the political debate. So rather than write yet another, I decided to find out what Arthur Laffer thought."

He found out that Laffer still believes reagan's tax cuts paid for themselves in spite of subsequent evidence and recantments.

Sphere: Related Content