use Perl

• no (Score:1)

  by jjohn (22)

  America has always like to conflate circus freak shows and politicians. Although I don't have examples ready, eighteenth century American politics are full of dubious candidates. I'll wait to see what kind of governator Arnie is. Who knows? Perhaps he'll do an ok job. I'll be amazed if the Republican war on taxes (while spending gobs of money on the military and spook projects) has any positive long-term benefit for the country as a whole. Somehow, it just seems petty and self-serving.
  • Re:no (Score:2)

    by pudge (1)

    The concept is simple: cutting taxes puts more money in the hands of people which helps businesses grow which creates more tax revenue. You can end up with the same amount of increased revenue and help taxpayers at the same time.
    
    It has worked in the past. It worked under JFK, and it worked under Reagan. Will it work again? Time will tell, but to imply it doesn't make sense is to ignore cases where it's actually worked as planned.
    • Re:no (Score:1)

      by brev (1827) on 2003.10.09 12:33 (#24784)

      I'm not an economist, but some economists claim that supply-side has never been a real economic theory with any evidence for it, just a political platform. This article [korpios.org] describes how supply-side economists have no support from academia. And currently Princeton economist Paul Krugman [pkarchive.org] has devoted many of his NYTimes columns to debunking the idea.

      Also -- I've never heard that JFK was a supply-sider before.

      But you're one of the smarter conservatives I know, and I'd like to hear the other side. The rebuttals to Krugman that I can find are rather dubious and come only from media that I would consider overly politicially slanted (National Review, Wall Street Journal, Canadian National Post). And a surprising number of rebuttals are by this one guy Bruce Bartlett. In this one [ncpa.org] Bartlett admits that supply-side economics is outside the mainstream of economics, but that is only because all economics professors are Stalinist Keynesians, or something.

      This probably isn't the place for such a debate. You can respond by email if you like (neil underscore j underscore k at yahoo dot com).

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      • Re:no (Score:2)

        by pudge (1)

        I can't talk much about it now, I am on vacation, but realize two things: 1. academia is not interesting to me, as it often ignores practical application and evidence, and 2. Krugman is at least as "politically slanted" as the National Review is.
        
        As to Kennedy being a "supply sider," I wouldn't say that in today's terms, but look into the things he said about cutting the top tax rate (then up around 80 or 90 percent ... yes, really) and look at the result of slashing it. And "Reaganomics" DID help bring th