JLF head John Hood had a column out on Monday on the response of the Left to conservatives coming to power in North Carolina. This quote from John’s piece kind of sums it up:
While some liberal lawmakers, activists, and commentators did engage in substantive debate, many others resorted to character assassination and ludicrous conspiracy theories. They peddled misinformation to inexperienced or credulous reporters. They compared their opponents to segregationists and neo-Nazis. The result was the circus atmosphere of a university sit-in, not a conversation among grown-ups.
Perhaps it was just too challenging to construct substantive responses to empirical evidence supporting North Carolina’s new conservative policies. For example, liberal critics said that instead of reforming and reducing North Carolina taxes, lawmakers should have increased state spending on education, infrastructure, Medicaid, and other programs, even if higher taxes were needed.
What does the empirical evidence say? Of the hundreds of peer-reviewed studies published on these subjects since 1992, nearly two-thirds show a positive link between lower taxes and economic growth. But only 38 percent show positive economic effects from higher spending on education and only 44 percent show positive effects from higher infrastructure spending. There is virtually no evidence for such effects from higher spending on Medicaid or other public-assistance programs.
