Larry Kudlow has a good piece emphasizing the importance of continuing to press for across the board tax cuts (and fight tax hikes) as the key to economic growth. This was a part of Scott Brown’s winning message. Kudlow writes:
The cornucopia of tax hikes currently on the table includes higher levies on capital-gains, top earners, dividends, investment (via the payroll tax), carbon, millionaires, banks, stock transactions, and estates (via the death tax). It’s a long Democratic wish list of anti-growth policies, and Scott Brown’s triumph should signal the end of it. But it won’t happen unless GOP congressional leaders make a bid deal about it.
For example, some Blue Dog Democrats want to extend the Bush tax cuts, rather than letting them expire next year. Republican leaders should be making a big deal about this. They need to get it front and center, making expiration a condition to any new legislation.
Remember that Brown ran on a JFK/Ronald Reagan platform of across-the-board tax cuts to promote economic growth.
It certainly makes sense for the GOP to emphasize the need to reduce the tax burden and not enact more job-killing tax increases (even those targeted at the “rich”). Yet when analysts project hundred billion dollar deficits pretty much every year into perpetuity, it’s important to be serious about spending cuts too. Congress can’t just cut taxes without also shrinking government outlays, both as a policy matter and for the sake of politics, since people are rightfully concerned about the ballooning debt.
The good news is that there is so much waste in government that there is plenty of cuts to recommend. And as Kudlow notes, a recent poll shows that by a 20 percent margin Americans prefer a smaller government with fewer services. Policymakers should try to give them what they want and start identifying cut.