Economic Stimulants

George Bernard Shaw once mused that “If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.” In seeming defiance, Robert L. Bartley asserts his deductions plainly: “Permanent, Marginal, Immediate” (Bartley, A15). In his article of the same title, Bartley addresses the deceivingly simple question of “what stimulates and why?” en route to theoretically solving the problem of reducing the budget deficit that currently plagues our country’s politicians. And though he does indeed arrive at several insightful and valid conclusions, he does so with a slightly negligent treatment of monetary policy and a certainty that seems to discount the ever-haunting unpredictables that seem inherently entwined with the economic question.
The first thrust of his three-pronged argument is simple: the tax cut—if it is to be successful in stimulating a growth in the economy and consequently in tax revenues—must be permanent. It ...