From a reader:

Jonah, As a longtime Corner junkie and a conservative (and investment professional) who is primarily concerned with economic matters, I just wanted to say how great I thought Bruce Bartlett’s piece on “supply side” economics was. I think this is my primary beef with Republicans who I usually tend to agree with (including members of my own family) – they love to say how when we cut taxes, federal revenues go up, and look at the data as if those two things occur in a vacuum (tax receipts, particularly in recent years, are of course impacted by both the Fed and the business cycle as well). Obviously, this can’t be true, since if taxes were 0%, I don’t think the government would take in much money. I think Republicans need to refocus on why we want to cut taxes to begin with – to force the government to cut spending – and stop using the supply side argument in order to avoid make tough decisions about what to cut. They will need to in order to keep voters like me on board.

Also, Tim Worstall — for whom I seem to be flacking this morning — has a long and useful discussion of the Bartlett piece and the discussion it generated.