For my write-up today on Bruce Bartlett's The New American Economy: The Failure of Reaganomics and a New Way Forward, I'll use as my starting-point Bartlett's assessment of the Bush tax cuts on page 140:
"To
be sure, some of Bush's tax cuts, such as the cut in the capital gains
tax, did have supply-side effects and undoubtedly recouped much of the
static revenue loss. But the vast bulk of Bush's tax cuts in dollar
terms involved rebates and tax credits that had no supply-side effects
whatsoever. Therefore, to claim, as Bush often did, that his tax
policies as a whole had such strong supply-side effects that they paid
for themselves is the grossest of exaggerations. The truth is that they
increased growth a little, but at a very large cost in terms of federal
revenue, and far less than would have been the case had the supply-side
elements of Bush's tax cuts been made permanent and not phased in."
Earlier
in the book, Bartlett says that the rebates were not strengthening the
economy because many of the people getting them were not spending them,
but rather were saving them, since the rebates primarily went to people
"with relatively high incomes" (page 138).
I appreciate Bartlett's
argument that some tax cuts stimulate economic growth and bring in
revenue more than other tax cuts. Although I have moved somewhat to the
Left over the past couple of years, I myself prefer a degree of
flexibility when it comes to tax cuts. If the capital gains tax cut
stimulates economic growth and recoups a lot of lost revenue----and
maybe even increases revenue (see here)----then
why not have it? At the same time, I do think that it's problematic to
give tax cuts to people who make so much that they probably won't spend
it, for that doesn't stimulate the economy. I tend to gravitate
towards Bill Clinton's approach, as I understand it: cut the tax on
capital gains, yet also increase income tax rates on people making over a
certain amount.