Free Republic

It is terrible that conservatives are out there distorting the records of each candidate. Or worse passing along wrong information without checking facts. All of them have qualifications and disqualifications. But can we get away from what they say they will do and compare what they actually did when they were afforded governing power? I was talking to a nationally published conservative author and speaker today who had absolutely no clue that Newt Gingrich gave the “keynote” rebuttal AGAINST Al Gore on Cap and Trade legislation. This is a travesty not just of conservative media, but those we surround ourselves...

I have been reading about fiscal policy under Ronald Reagan in my father's splendid book, Presidential Economics. What I have learned or re-learned is that Reagan was confronted with a giant problem in his 1980 campaign. The problem was budget deficits from the Johnson/Nixon/Ford/Carter years along with high inflation and a stubbornly high unemployment rate. The conventional economic advice called for raising taxes or monetary restraint to lower the inflation. But the problem there was that those measures would almost surely also generate higher unemployment. Along came what my father calls "the economics of joy," which was supply-side economics. This...

"It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now ... Cutting taxes now is not to incur a budget deficit, but to achieve the more prosperous, expanding economy which can bring a budget surplus." – John F. Kennedy, Nov. 20, 1962, president's news conference -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Lower rates of taxation will stimulate economic activity and so raise the levels of personal and corporate income as to yield within a few years an increased – not...

Forty-five years ago this week, President John F. Kennedy announced a startling economic discovery. He tried to educate the American people about why he was cutting taxes – not that the American people or any other people have ever needed to be persuaded to cut taxes. In a news conference Nov. 20, 1962, he said: "It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now. ... Cutting taxes now is not to incur a budget...

Jonathan Chait is a man on a mission. Target: Supply-side economics. Problem: He views supply-side theory through a liberal lens, which is why it’s not making sense to him. Chait, a senior editor at The New Republic, has written a book titled “The Big Con: The True Story of How Washington Got Hoodwinked and Hijacked by Crackpot Economics,” along with various op-ed pieces roasting supply-side theory. Chait’s argument focuses on the oft-stated belief of supply-siders that tax cuts pay for themselves by spurring economic growth – that taking smaller slices of a bigger pie still yields you more pie than...

Happy birthday, Mr. President — that's President Ronald Reagan, who turned 93 on Friday. Fittingly, the lead economic story in the Wall Street Journal that day described how the communist government in China has decided to slash tax rates on both foreign and domestic businesses. What a perfect present for the Gipper. "It's a lot like Reaganonics," deputy finance minister Lou Jiwei said in the story. "We feel that only through simplifying things and lowering tax rates will revenue collection become more efficient." Sounds a lot like the Laffer Curve, doesn't it? And Mr. Lou had more: "At the same...