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The late William Niskanen is likely not a familiar name to most of the contributors here - he was one of the egghead-intellectual libertarians whose natural environment is the rarefied precincts of think-tanks such as the Cato Institute (of which he was chairman until his recent death), whose ideas help form whatever intellectual respectability still exists on the Right, but whose names rarely fall from the mouths of Limbaugh, Beck et al.
As one of the bright young things among Reagan's advisors, Niskanen spent much of his early career in accord with figures like Friedman and Greenspan on the key to their libertarian promised land of a much smaller, much more limited government: starving the beast (STB). But at the end of his career, Niskanen's research led him to a startling conclusion: it didn't work, and in fact, seemed to have produced the opposite results:
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Reagan, Friedman, and other early advocates of STB had counted on something that never materialized. They had assumed that as the debt piled up to finance annual budget deficits caused by free-flowing benefits, public outrage would force politicians to restrain spending without raising taxes. Yet we’ve had the deficits and the borrowing, in amounts that would have left Friedman and Reagan agog; what’s been missing is the outrage
Niskanen's alternative was to turn face-about: if we wanted smaller government, we would have to raise taxes. “'Demand by current voters for federal spending,' he explained, 'declines with the amount of this spending that is financed by current taxes.'” Or, as Ferguson's article I've linked above puts it, quoting Jonathan Rauch, "Voters will not shrink Big Government until they feel the pinch of its true cost.”
Ferguson, as one would expect of a contributor to the Weekly Standard, is dubious about this conclusion. But what seems to have become clear to libertarian (or, as they're known in popular argot, "conservative") thinkers, hasn't yet trickled down to the level of the mass media: namely, that the Norquisling "no new taxes" approach doesn't work: Starving the Beast is an exercise in futility.
Yes, the myth that tax cuts pay for themselves is just that, a myth. What we have learned since the '80's is that tax cuts do not result in spending cuts. GW Bush was the worst when it came to wars and an unfunded prescription plan. It is too easy for politicians to give out freebies. When you took from Peter to pay Paul you lost Peter's vote. Peter and Paul Jr. can't vote.
Of course, you won't get small government or fiscally responsible government by just taxing the rich.
Try the search function. William Niskanen is familiar to many if not most conservative CD posters. I have posted about his work several times in connection with the topic of divided government (e.g. dem controlled white house/R-controlled House of Reps).
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help form whatever intellectual respectability still exists on the Right, but whose names rarely fall from the mouths of Limbaugh, Beck et al.
You do realize that Walter E Williams is a regular fill-in host for Rush Limbaugh? And Thomas Sowell has appeared on the show many times? Keep on keepin on with your delusionary view that you=intellectual pinnacle, and conservatives=bumpkins, rubes, and idiots.
'Starve the beast' was at one time a popular notion in conservative circles. We just never dreamed that a Pres. Obama would come along and be willing to run up $16 trillion in debt, and evidently willing to keep going right up to 20. Under that scenario, clearly STB doesn't work.
Yes, the myth that tax cuts pay for themselves is just that, a myth. What we have learned since the '80's is that tax cuts do not result in spending cuts. GW Bush was the worst when it came to wars and an unfunded prescription plan. It is too easy for politicians to give out freebies. When you took from Peter to pay Paul you lost Peter's vote. Peter and Paul Jr. can't vote.
Of course, you won't get small government or fiscally responsible government by just taxing the rich.
Tax cuts were never designed to pay for themselves...they are all about encouraging growth and bringing in more money to the government by expanding the employment sector..which works....the failure is over spending....
The drug plan was Ted Kennedy's dream come true...Bush was a fool to think he would get any love from the Liberals by putting another entitlement program out there....
Tax cuts were never designed to pay for themselves...they are all about encouraging growth and bringing in more money to the government by expanding the employment sector..which works....the failure is over spending....
The drug plan was Ted Kennedy's dream come true...Bush was a fool to think he would get any love from the Liberals by putting another entitlement program out there....
The fact is it is more conservative to tax and spend then to borrow and spend. If they made a requirement that every new government program would have to be paid for we would have less government programs.
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