It's the GOP strategy: Cut taxes, get into a lather about high tax rates, repeat. (I've left out the part about blowing up the deficit.) Here, influential House Republican Mike Pence puts the strategy into action:
Jim DeMint and I are offering legislation on Capitol Hill today to say, look, let's make all the current tax rates permanent, uh, and then let's start to work from there toward putting in place the kind of policies that'll really get this economy moving again. You know, I think it's fair to say, if the current tax rates were enough to create jobs and generate economic growth we'd have a growing economy. It's not working now. Let's at least give some certainty there and then we'll fight for more tax relief.
So the suggestion is to make permanent the tax policy that hurts economic growth and then fight for more of the same? Consider me skeptical of the overall thrust of Pence's plan, but at least he's right about the economic effects of the Bush tax cuts.
-- Tim Fernholz
