Bob Bryan — One chart shows why Trump could have big trouble getting his tax plan past some Republicans

Business Insider
One chart shows why Trump could have big trouble getting his tax plan past some Republicans

Bob Bryan

Karoli Kuns — Reaganomics Inventor Excuses Kansas Failure, Says Tax Cuts Were 'Too Small'

Art Laffer doubles down on Kansas.

Crooks and Liars
Reaganomics Inventor Excuses Kansas Failure, Says Tax Cuts Were 'Too Small'
Karoli Kuns

James Kwak — Kudlow and Economics in the Trump Administration

Title should be Larry Kudow and economism.

I prefer G. W. H. Bush's "voodoo economics."

It seems some people never learn.

Baseline Scenario
Kudlow and Economics in the Trump Administration

James Kwak | Associate Professor of Law at the University of Connecticut School of Law

ht Mark Thoma at Economist's View

See also

New Yorker
Ayn Rand And Corporate Tax Cuts Won’t Mend The Economy

John Cassidy

Noahpinion
The Fundamental Fallacy of Pop Economics

Noah Smith

Dirk Ehnts — A comment on the trickle-down economics of Arthur Laffer, 2017 Trump edition

Laffer’s trickle-down economics did not do well empirically. Whether a cut in taxes stimulates the economy is a different question, and also any changes in tax rates might be overcompensated by changes in government spending taking place simultaneously. This, I believe, was part of the bait-and-switch under Ronald Reagan (tax cuts for the rich, but huge increase in government spending on defence) and will be part of the Trump policy, too. Nothing new here.

econoblog 101
A comment on the trickle-down economics of Arthur Laffer, 2017 Trump edition
Dirk Ehnts | Lecturer at Bard College Berlin

Jonathan Swan — Trump adviser tells House Republicans: You're no longer Reagan's party

Donald Trump’s economic adviser Stephen Moore told a group of top Republicans last week that they now belong to a fundamentally different political party.

Moore surprised some of the Republican lawmakers assembled at their closed-door whip meeting last Tuesday when he told them they should no longer think of themselves as belonging to the conservative party of Ronald Reagan.They now belong to Trump’s populist working-class party, he said.

A source briefed on the House GOP whip meeting — which Moore attended as a guest of Majority Whip Steve Scalise — said several lawmakers told him they were taken aback by the economist’s comments.

“For God’s sake, it’s Stephen Moore!” the source said, explaining some of the lawmakers’ reactions to Moore’s statement. “He’s the guy who started Club for Growth. He’s Mr. Supply Side economics.”

“I think it’s going to take them a little time to process what does this all mean,” the source added of the lawmakers. “The vast majority of them were on the wrong side. They didn’t think this was going to happen.”

Asked about his comments to the GOP lawmakers, Moore told The Hill he was giving them a dose of reality.

“Just as Reagan converted the GOP into a conservative party, Trump has converted the GOP into a populist working-class party,” Moore said in an interview Wednesday. “In some ways this will be good for conservatives and in other ways possibly frustrating.”...

“Reagan ran as an ideological conservative. Trump ran as an economic populist,” he said.

“Trump’s victory,” Moore added, “turned it into the Trump party.”

Sound of heads exploding in the background.

The Hill
Trump adviser tells House Republicans: You're no longer Reagan's party

Jonathan Swan

Yanis Varoufakis — Trump: The Next Keynesian President? Don’t Bank On It

While it is impossible to predict the economic consequences of Mr Trump’s tenure, given his strategic preference for vagueness over policy detail, one thing is clear: any mention of Trump as a Keynesian president, just as in the case of Ronald Reagan, confuses “Keynesian” for “irresponsible” and generates expectations unlikely to be fulfilled.
Deficit spending can take one of three forms: tax cuts, spending increases or a combination of the two. Republicans, from Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush, and now clearly Donald Trump, favor large-scale tax cuts while concentrating additional spending on defense procurement.

If the objective is to provide a flagging economy with necessary stimulus, Republican deficit spending is a most inefficient means. John Maynard Keynes, who had no love lost for the working class, and harbored a keen interest in promoting the wellbeing of aristocratic folk like himself, nonetheless objected to large-scale tax cuts for a simple, practical reason: the trickle-down effect is a myth, to put his point in Reaganite language.

The reason that “trickle down” is a myth is that the rich are most likely to save a large part of the tax relief they receive, thus blunting its stimulus potential, or use it to go skiing in Switzerland, rather than to spend it in their demand-deprived community. This is why targeted spending on the poor was the British gentleman’s recommendation: because it stimulates demand much more efficiently.

In defense of Keynes, Varoufakis points out that Keynes was a deficit dove that recommended balancing the budget over the cycle, running deficits in bad time and surpluses in good times. This where MMT economists part company with Keynes.

Yanis Varoufakis
TRUMP: THE NEXT KEYNESIAN PRESIDENT? DON’T BANK ON IT 

Newsweek, 16 NOV 2016

David Edwards — Joe Scarborough gives up the game: After 30 years, the GOP base realized ‘it never trickles down’

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough complained on Tuesday that the Republican Party was fracturing because it had advocated economic policies benefiting the richest Americans for the last 30 years with the promise that the wealth would “trickle down” to others — but it never did.

“The problem with the Republican Party over the past 30 years is they haven’t — and I’ll say, we haven’t — developed a message that appeals to the working class Americans economically in a way that Donald Trump’s does,” the former Republican lawmaker explained. “We talk about cutting capital gains taxes that the 10,000 people that in the crowd cheering for Donald Trump, they are never going to get a capital gains cut because it doesn’t apply.”

“We talk about getting rid of the death tax,” he continued. “The death tax is not going to impact the 10,000 people in the crowd for Donald Trump. We talk about how great free trade deals are. Those free trade deals never trickle down to those 10,000 people in Donald Trump’s rallies.”

“You sound like Bernie Sanders,” NBC’s Chuck Todd pointed out.

“But herein lies the problem with the Republican Party,” Scarborough complained. “It never trickles down! Those people in Trump’s crowds, those are all the ones that lost the jobs when they get moved to Mexico and elsewhere. The Republican donor class are the ones that got rich off of it because their capital moved overseas and they made higher profits.”

Joe admits the real reason that the Donald is doing so well. Trickle down is really funnel up.

Raw Story
Joe Scarborough gives up the game: After 30 years, the GOP base realized ‘it never trickles down’

David Edwards

Bruce Bartlett and James Galbraith — The Battle Over Reagan’s Economic Plan

The spirited debate about the merits of Bernie Sanders's economic plan reminds two prominent economists of one that they were on opposite sides of 35 years ago.…

JKG: "The lesson for today is that we shouldn’t be imprisoned by the conventional wisdom of establishment economists. When the magnitude of our economic problems is great, as it was with inflation in the early 1980s and stagnant growth now, bold policies must be enacted."

Moyers & Co.
The Battle Over Reagan’s Economic Plan
Bruce Bartlett and James Galbraith

In 1981, Galbraith was executive director of the Joint Economic Committee and head of its Democratic staff. Bartlett was deputy director of the Joint Economic Committee and head of its Republican staff.

Peter Radford — Krugman versus Sanders

Krugman and cronies = Reaganism lite. Young people especially aren't buying it anymore.

Real-World Economics Review Blog
Krugman versus Sanders

Peter Radford

Michael Nevradakis and Greg Palast — GREECE’D: We Voted ‘No’ to slavery, but ‘Yes’ to our chains

What’s simply whack-o is that, while voting “No” to austerity, many Greeks wish to remain shackled to the euro, the very cause of our miseries....

Sorry, Alexis, if you want to use the Reich’s coin you have to accept the Reichsdiktat....

The imposition of the euro had one true goal: To end the European welfare state....

It would be refreshing to hear political leaders say the honest economic truth: “Workers of Europe unite! You have nothing to lose but the euro—and your chains.”

Greg Palast

GREECE’D: We Voted ‘No’ to slavery,  but ‘Yes’ to our chains

Greek journalist Michael Nevradakis and US investigative journalist Greg Palast

ht James in the comments

Joe Conason — Voodoo Economics Still Isn’t a Plan

Voodoo economics, as the senior (and smarter) Bush so memorably termed this belief system, does not work. But Ryan evidently believes in it, because his budget depends heavily on that old voodoo to achieve balance.

truthdig
Voodoo Economics Still Isn’t a Plan
Joe Conason

Out of paradigm, but true in that the presumed transmission mechanism from saving to investment is false. It will instead increase economic rent and drive up asset prices, increasing costs for most people. David Stockman admitted that the rationale intentionally manufactured as a ruse to justify ideological policy and fool the rubes.

The joke's on us!!!

Source: whoaorno.com via Mike on Pinterest