Daily Kos Sneers at the Supply-side Easter Bunny?

September 29th, 2012 11:18 AM

Mark Sumner at the Daily Kos demands that reporters point out that supply-side economics is a complete fantasy. "Any politician who promises to right the economy through cutting taxes on the wealthy might as well invoke the Easter Bunny, and any reporter who fails to point this out is failing the public."

Conservatives believe in a supply-side Sasquatch? "There is a difference between believing in the existence of Bigfoot and counting on reducing taxes on the rich as a way to boost the economy. Bigfoot is simply very, very unlikely. Conservative economics are a myth." The Reagan Recovery is a myth?

That's how it concluded. Here's how it began:

If Mitt Romney were to declare that his plan for Medicare relied on fairy dust, people would laugh. If he said that he was waiting for Superman—literally Superman, the one with the blue red 'S' and the dangling spit curl—to teach America's children, everyone would assume it was a joke. If Romney swore that bug-eyed aliens were central to his foreign policy, it would generate well-deserved snickers.

And if he said any one of these things over and over, if he insisted they were true, if he included them in nearly every speech, proudly repeated them to the press, and made them the centerpiece of his campaign... if he did that, the laughter would turn sour. Surely Romney wouldn't be able to give a speech without being met with derision. He wouldn't make it through an interview without the media tearing into his ridiculous and unworkable plans. He'd be laughed right out of the race.

So when Mitt Romney declares that his economic plan involves reducing taxes on the wealthy as a means of growing the economy... where's the laughter?

That's funny. When I think of economic Bigfoot, it would be something like "I'm going to insure 35 million more Americans through government assistance and it will reduce the deficit."