“The spirit of a people, its cultural level, its social structure, the deeds its policy may prepare – all this and more is written in its fiscal history,” Joseph Schumpeter once observed. How, then, should we view Donald Trump's proposed US tax reforms, and the apparent willingness of Republicans who posed as fiscal hawks during the Obama presidency to add $2 trillion to the federal budget deficit over the next decade?
- Joseph Stiglitz argues that lower taxes for the rich and deregulation won’t work, because they never have.
- Brad DeLong thinks that Trump’s tax cuts are a form of supply-side amnesia.
- Martin Feldstein disagrees: yes, the cuts will widen the budget deficit, but they will also boost growth.
