[lbo-talk] Low Taxes Do What!?

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Wed Jun 30 09:27:18 PDT 2004


Grant Lee wrote:


>But is Sowell correct about rising revenue in $ terms being outstripped by
>congressional initiatives? My impression was that the White House led the
>charge with defence spending, as Travis Fast has already said.

Rising revenues in $ terms is a canard. Inflation and economic and population growth make rising revenues in dollar terms a near-certainty. To keep programs constant, you almost always need nominal increases (Republicans love to obscure that, but that's the way the CBO does its "baseline" projections). Military spending rose dramatically in the early 1980s, as revenues were falling as a share of GDP. It's amusing that Sowell should make such egregiously propagandistic errors while accusing everyone else of being nonrigorous.

Doug



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