Friday, June 24, 2011

From Paul Krugman - More Evidence That Tax Cuts do Not Pay For Themselves, Or Even Raise Revenue

In Pictures, Because Conservatives Don't Or Cannot Read

Since the aptly named "Laffer" Curve was developed in the late 1970's Conservatives have supported the idea that if you cut tax rates, the ensuing economic growth and higher income will produce higher revenues to such an extent that tax revenues will rise by more than enough to offset the expected revenue loss.  Despite evidence that this does not happen, the mantra remains a part of Conservative lore because it enables them to support a policy of tax cuts and claim to be decreasing not increasing the deficit.

Paul Krugman has a post and graphs which show this is not the case.

and goes on to conclude
There was no Reagan revenue miracle; growth slowed. There was a Clinton miracle. And there was a Bush II reverse miracle.

Of course, who are you going to believe, Conservatives who have been wrong on taxes for 30 years, or your own eyes?  Ok, that was a trick question.

Follow up Note:  Bush Economist Greg Mankiw has criticized Krugman for his methodology.  Krugman very nicely destroys Mr. Mankiw, see here.  Mankiw's position is that Krugman starts his graph on Reagan with the Carter years.  As Krugman points out, any analysis of this type has to be done on a business cycle neutral basis, which his graphs do.  Mankiw, according to Krugman, is "pretending to be stupid". 

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