[Economy]

This Is Not My Beautiful Economy

This morning, as I listened to news that inflation is on the rise, I had a flashback. I recalled Dubya's many claims of post-tax-cut prosperity. We would pull ourselves out of the tech malaise with tax cuts. We would create jobs, we would end the recession. Of course, even at the time we knew it was faith-based economics--particularly without spending cuts. When the GOP started delivering sacks of federal money to their wealthy patrons, that was pretty much out the window.

But let's revisit the tax cuts for a second because there's a fundamental principle that caused some economists to promote them. The notion, if I understand it, was that tax cuts would free up money for investment on the top end and put change in pockets for spending on the bottom end. That it would be a panacea to all our economic ills seemed worse than naive, but hey, you gotta polish the apple. Still, shouldn't it have had its basic intended effect? For five years now, we've listened to Bush describe how this thing works, and for five years now, it hasn't worked that way.

Has Bush inadvertently proven--through a massive, multi-trillion dollar experiment--that tax cuts have only the mildest effects if they work at all? Perhaps an economist will straighten me out, but what we've sacrificed to fund this experiment in future debt seems to have produced damn near no benefit. Let us all recall this experiment when the next wave of tax-cutters come to town with their snake oil.