Click here for a terrific column by David Limbaugh calling for a return to supply-side coherence in the GOP ranks. Limbaugh writes:
Instead of arguing, as did such vintage supply-siders as Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp in the early ’80s, that reductions in marginal income tax rates would spur economic growth because they would provide incentives to produce and invest (supply-side), [President Bush] said the growth would be (and was) a result of people having more to spend and spending it (demand-side). He compounded the confusion when he attempted to sell his tax rebate plan with the same rationale.
This will play right into incoming President Obama’s hands as he rolls out his argument that his further planned tax rebates and his massive spending increases (in the forms of his “stimulus” plan and future bailouts) will stimulate economic growth by increasing demand.
Later in the column, Limbaugh debunks the notion that Americans were compelled to spend their stimulus checks immediately, which would have (supposedly) provided a jump to the economy. The focus should be on providing long-term tax relief and spending reductions rather than temporary jolts via rebates.
In any event, this attitude of viewing the American people as consumers only instead of producers and innovators needs to end. How about improving the economy by investing and producing rather than running up unholy amounts of consumer debt and getting into insane mortgages?
