by From W. Milberg and the current issue of the RWER With the Trump tax cuts of 2017, the disconnect in popular discourse between government spending and taxing became more or less complete. Rate (and revenue) cuts were considered politically appealing, independent of any imagined social goal that might require public financing. It constituted an end to the debate over the government spending required to attain social goals and the analysis of the tax rates and regulations needed to finance this spending. Whether or not the 2017 tax cuts were merited from a macroeconomic stimulus perspective (they were not), it is important to note that not once in the recent debate over tax cuts did the issue of social protection and public spending become part of the discussion. In the US at the moment,
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from W. Milberg and the current issue of the RWER
With the Trump tax cuts of 2017, the disconnect in popular discourse between government spending and taxing became more or less complete. Rate (and revenue) cuts were considered politically appealing, independent of any imagined social goal that might require public financing. It constituted an end to the debate over the government spending required to attain social goals and the analysis of the tax rates and regulations needed to finance this spending. Whether or not the 2017 tax cuts were merited from a macroeconomic stimulus perspective (they were not), it is important to note that not once in the recent debate over tax cuts did the issue of social protection and public spending become part of the discussion. In the US at the moment, there is little possibility for meaningful discussion of the public good, and specifically of infrastructure needs, educational improvements, broadening access to health insurance, expanding retirement pensions, reducing poverty or even assisting those injured by the introduction of new technologies or foreign competition.
How could such an economically-advanced and financially-sophisticated culture be so completely clueless when it comes to knowing even how to talk about the role of government and the benefit of government programs?
A very compelling answer to this question – and an urgent appeal for change – comes from June Sekera, in her book The Public Economy in Crisis: A Call for a New Public Economics, which arrives at a crucial and opportune moment. Sekera argues that the reason the public does not connect taxes to expenditure and does not even know how to discuss the benefits of government spending, is that the economists themselves do not have the conceptual framework to deal with the issue. read more