Mitch McConnell
Via Paul Krugman, Mitch McConnell made the following statement in support of Jon Kyl:
[T]here’s no evidence whatsoever that the Bush tax cuts actually diminished revenue. They increased revenue, because of the vibrancy of these tax cuts in the economy. So I think what Senator Kyl was expressing was the view of virtually every Republican on that subject.
So, according to McConnell, tax cuts are completely self-financing. If anyone has doubts about the ideology of today’s Republican Party, look no further than McConnell’s endorsement of voodoo economics.
How blatantly false is McConnell’s assertion that the Bush tax cuts increased revenue? Let’s turn to Bush’s own Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers , Gregory Mankiw. From Mankiw’s blog:
I used the phrase “charlatans and cranks” in the first edition of my principles textbook to describe some of the economic advisers to Ronald Reagan, who told him that broad-based income tax cuts would have such large supply-side effects that the tax cuts would raise tax revenue. I did not find such a claim credible, based on the available evidence. I never have, and I still don’t.
Let’s recap: Mankiw not only declares that the claim of self-financing tax cuts is false; he calls people pushing the fallacy “charlatans and cranks.” Clearly, those charlatans and cranks include Mitch McConnell.
