Friday, July 09, 2010

Tax Cuts And 'Starving The Beast

This is a couple of months old but Mark Thoma cited: ""Bruce Bartlett argues that 'starve the beast' doesn't work, and may even lead to the opposite of the intended effect."

"Starve the beast was a theory that seemed plausible when it was first formulated. But more than 30 years later it must be pronounced a total failure. There is not one iota of empirical evidence that it works the way it was supposed to, and there is growing evidence that its impact has been perverse--raising spending and making deficits worse. In short, STB is a completely bankrupt notion that belongs in the museum of discredited ideas, along with things like alchemy."

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