Re: Arthur Laffer

[AdmrlLocke]

In a message dated 2/8/05 1:13:22 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

>
> In a message dated 2/7/05 11:46:21 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>
>
> > There's an interesting (to me, anyway) interview with Arthur Laffer
> > here:
> >
> > http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/opinion/columnists/steigerwald/s_3
> > 00457.html
> >
> > --Robert
> >
>
> Oh, thank goodness! When I saw the subject line I thought you were goign to
> tell us that he'd died.

Gosh, I didn't even think of that!  Sorry, didn't mean to scare
anybody.....


> I see the basis of his optimism, but still I feel
> pessimistic.   Marginal federal income tax rates have fallen (although they fell
> lower than they are now and rose again, and actually rise about the statutory
> 35% Laffer mentions) and we've had little inflation, but the federal register
> continues to grow by leaps and bounds, federal spending grows faster than at
> any time since the 1960s, and Bush gave us our first new entitlement since the
> 1960s, while the old entitlements continue to grow out of control.

Didn't the 1996 welfare reform act get rid of the AFDC entitlement?

So they aren't ALL growing....

Also, lots of industries have been deregulated since (say) 1970.
Airlines, some types of telecommunications, trucking, etc.

I know, we've got a long way to go, but let's not pretend that the
past was some unregulated Eden, either.....


--Robert

Ah well, it's probably just me so far as the fear of bad news goes--just my natural pessimism. I always  have the same response when my mother sends me an email with just a name in the subject: if it's a particular brother I think he's had another heart attack; if it's my dad I run through a litany of possible ailments that turned fatal. :-)

I thought that AFDC still exists and that the welfare reform act of 96 merely limited the time one can spend getting certain federal benefits--which might include AFDC. In toto spending on entitlements has certainly increased, even setting aside the new Medicare prescription drug entitlement, and I  understand that Medicaid especially has been growing at double-digit rates and will, even if the Republicans have th stomach to pass the Bush administration's current proposal, still grow at 7% per year.

Just how deregulated are the deregulated industries?  The federal government might not exercise direct regulation of prices in oil, gas, and transportation, but that doesn't preclude an ever-growing raft of regulation of these and other industries, regulation which indirectly changes the prices underlying literally millions if not billions of transactions.  In transportation, furthermore, the federal govenment never degregulated the basic infrastucture--the airports--and with the creation of the Department of Homeland Security they took a step backwards by socializing airport security, which might not be much better at ferreting out terrorists but has taken an impressive leap upwards in its ability to delay and harass l law-abiding travelers. And what about the people thrown in prison for cleaning up junkyards that occasionally flood (supposedly violating the "wetlands regulations" promulgated under the Inland Waterways Act, which actually has nothing to do with wetlands at all), or whose businesses the federal government shuts down for violating the Americans With Disabilities Act, or the local officials imprisoned for refusing to quintuple local taxes to meet federal environmental regulations or other unfunded mandates?

I'm not saying that nothing good has happened, but it seems like a case of one step forward, two-hundred steps back.

David