Bruce Bartlett — A Conservative Case for the Welfare State

..there are sound reasons why a conservative would support a welfare state. Historically, it has been conservatives like the 19th century chancellor of Germany, Otto von Bismarck, who established the welfare state in Europe. They did so because masses of poor people create social instability and become breeding grounds for radical movements.

In postwar Europe, conservative parties were the principal supporters of welfare-state policies in order to counter efforts by socialists and communists to abolish capitalism altogether. The welfare state was devised to shave off the rough edges of capitalism and make it sustainable. Indeed, the conservative icon Winston Churchill was among the founders of the British welfare state.... 

American conservatives routinely assert that the people of Europe live in virtual destitution because of their swollen welfare states. But according to a commonly accepted index of life satisfaction, many heavily taxed European countries rank well above the United States....

The New York Times | Economix
A Conservative Case for the Welfare State
Bruce Bartlett
(h/t Mark Thoma at Economist's View)

Historically, the conservative bugaboo, "Keynesianism.," was designed as the capitalist backstop against the rising tide of socialism and communism. Get rid of "the welfare state" and reap the whirlwind.

Bruce Bartlett — Revenge of the Reality-Based Community

My life on the Republican right—and how I saw it all go wrong.

The American Conservative
Revenge of the Reality-Based Community
Bruce Bartlett

This is a "confessional" setting forth how Bruce Bartlett  came to the unsettling (for him) conclusion that Keynes was right after all. Its the demand, stupid.

Ripe for MMT?

Bruce Bartlett — “Taxes and a Two-Santa Theory" -The Origin of Modern Republican Fiscal Policy

Wondering where the Ryan budget comes from?

In 1976, the journalist Jude Wanniski wrote an essay, “Taxes and a Two-Santa Theory,” little noticed at the time and virtually unknown today, that put forward a theory that has had extraordinary influence on the Republican Party. Indeed, virtually everything Republicans say about taxes and spending today echoes that theory.

Read it at The New York Times | Economix
The Origin of Modern Republican Fiscal Policy
By Bruce Bartlett
(h/t Mark Thoma)

The Laffer Curve and Fiscal Policy

The dynamic calculation would be supplementary and not replace the current official scoring methodology, but the obvious long-term goal is to require official revenue estimates to incorporate “Laffer curve” effects in order to make it easier to cut taxes and harder to raise them.

The Laffer curve, named for the economist Arthur Laffer, posits that tax rates may be so high that a tax-rate reduction will raise revenue to the government and a tax-rate increase will lower revenue.

While no economist denies the theoretical possibility of a revenue-raising tax cut or revenue-losing tax increase, Republicans talk as if the United States is always on the high side of the Laffer curve – no matter what the tax rates are – so every tax cut will pay for itself and no tax increase could possibly ever raise net revenue and thus reduce the deficit.

Read it at The New York Times | Economix

Tilting the Budget Process to the G.O.P.
by Bruce Bartlett
(Bruce Bartlett held senior policy roles in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and served on the staffs of Representatives Jack Kemp and Ron Paul.)

Must-read from the MMT perspective. It shows how the present budgetary process works from the right and how it is dictated by ideology rather than macroeconomic reasoning, let alone sectoral balances.

Republicans don’t really care about accurate revenue estimates; they just want them to show that tax cuts pay for themselves, so they can pass more of them without constraint. As my fellow Economix contributor Simon Johnson has noted, the corruption of the agencies that produce budget data is a crucial cause of Europe’s debt crisis.

Keven Drum chimes in at Mother Jones
Republicans Once Again Unleash Reality Distortion Field
by Kevin Drum