THE CASE FOR TAX RELIEF

I count myself as a fiscal conservative. I don’t see why any government should ever take more than a third of anyone’s livelihood under any circumstances, except war. I’ve rarely seen a tax cut I didn’t like or support, as long as spending was restrained as well. But there’s one argument for tax cuts that makes no sense and that’s George W. Bush’s. We do not need a tax cut to reboot the economy. Man, I thought we’d left demand-inflating Keynesianism back in the 1970s. If you argue for tax cuts when the economy is slowing, what’s to stop you from arguing for tax hikes if the economy is over-heating? Besides, tax-cuts are the clumsiest, slowest, and weakest way to stimulate an economy. Leave that to Greenspan and monetary policy. What conservatives need to do is make the case for lower taxes as part of a seamless case for greater personal freedom, as a way to devolve decisions about spending away from government officials to countless individuals who are best able to discern what would most benefit them at any given moment. The cuts should always be accomplished with an eye to the broader economic environment – but not as a way to change it. The last time anyone made these kinds of arguments persuasively was in the 1980s. But we need them now as much as ever.