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So, what’s the argument in favor of tax cuts? Are tax cuts justified today? Bruce Bartlett has an LA TIMES article that presents the argument in favor of tax cuts concisely.
By denying government its fuel, tax cuts forced politicians to cut spending. In this sense, supply-side economics echoed the thinking of conservative economist Milton Friedman, who wrote in a 1978 column that “the only effective way to restrain government spending is by limiting government’s explicit tax revenue – just as a limited income is the only effective restraint on any individual’s or family’s spending.”
It makes sense. It’s hard to build votes for cutting spending, because whatever special interest group benefits from any particular spending plan gets all bent out of shape when you talk about cutting it. But most people like the plan of reducing their annual tax bite.
To make this plan work, it’s essential at the same time, as Andrew Sullivan states (see previous post), to prevent simultaneous increases in spending.
