Bruce Bartlett: The Money Needs to Come From Somewhere

Bruce Bartlett, formerly of the Reagan administration and recent heretic on Supply Side Economics, makes a couple of serious points:

1. We've probably hit the bottom of the supply-side barrel, lowering taxes is probably not the wisest thing given our current public debt.
2. If the political will to truly reduce spending does not exist, then taxes must be raised to cover them. He suggests a VAT to pay for them.

I rather agree with the first point, and while I see the argument behind the second, I do not agree. Polticial will is not set in stone. In January of 2009 no one could possibly have seen the popularity of a bi-partisan anti-government movement, the election of a Republican to Ted Kennedy's seat. Just because no re-structuring of our public commitments has succeeded doesnt mean it is impossible.

Moreover, to raise taxes to meet public commitments is, in all bluntness, to reward bad behavior. For a century progressives have expanded the role of the state into as many aspects of private life as they could muster the votes for. At this writing, they show no sign of ever stopping that. To pay for a debt that should never have been incurred in the first place without making some effort at preventing this again is only marginally more responsible than endless deficit spending.

So, the dislocations of shutting down the government's massive role in our economy, or the slow starvation of that economy and any pretense of liberty for the sake of feeding the Progressive Leviathan. Place your bets.