Over at Capital Gains and Games, a heterodox Bruce Bartlett is making eminent sense about taxation. I don't necessarily agree with all his ideas, like his apparent sense of urgency about reducing the federal budget deficit, but the fact that a right-of-center policy type is actually suggesting that fiscal responsibility does in fact include increasing revenue is refreshing as a mountain stream.

Exhibit A:

We got exactly the policies [the Chamber of Commerce] advocated from 2001 to 2008 and look what we ended up with--miserable growth, budgetary profligacy, and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. And the Chamber still thinks George W. Bush's policies are the ones that will restore growth. Is that nuts or what?

But until lately my enemies have refused to debate except behind closed doors. And then all of their arguments essentially boil down to the idea that there is one policy, tax cuts, that fits every single economic problem in every single economic circumstance. I believe their unwillingness to debate me publicly is because they know in their hearts that their position is intellectually untenable and can only sustain it by avoiding facts and arguments they cannot answer.

These are but two examples of Bartlett's revolutionary opinions that tax cuts don't pay for themselves and that taxation is not cyanide for job growth.

Image by Flickr user bglass_6838 used under a Creative Commons license.