Books in Brief: The Economics of the Tax Revolt: A Reader

The Economics of the Tax Revolt: A Reader, edited by Arthur B. Laffer and Jan P. Seymour (Harcourt Brace, 138 pp., $4.95). This book may ease the pain of any economics student stuck with Samuelson. Designed as a supplementary college text, it is a collection of essays commenting on that marvelous movement to cut taxes. Many of the pieces are incisive reprints from the Wall Street Journal, whose editorial page became a major forum for the debate. Irving Kristol is included; so are Journal types Jude Wanniski and Paul Craig Roberts, Harvard professor Martin Feldstein, and USC professor Arthur Laffer (this book’s co-editor and the namesake of the Laffer Curve). These are the advocates of what has become known as “supply-side economics”—a fancy name for a markedly freer economy with incentive to produce. They are pitted against the Keynesians (e.g., Walter Heller), who actually believe that people work harder and invest more the more they are taxed. They debate the Kemp-Roth bill, the Laffer Curve, Proposition 13, capital-gains taxes, and President Carter’s original energy plan. It is more or less a rout.

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Paul Gigot

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The Economics of the Tax Revolt: A Reader, edited by Arthur B. Laffer and Jan P. Seymour (Harcourt Brace, 138 pp., $4.95). This book may ease the pain of any economics student stuck with Samuelson. Designed as a supplementary college text, it is a collection of essays commenting on that marvelous movement to cut taxes. Many of the pieces are incisive reprints from the Wall Street Journal, whose editorial page became a major forum for the debate. Irving Kristol is included; so are Journal types Jude Wanniski and Paul Craig Roberts, Harvard professor Martin Feldstein, and USC professor Arthur Laffer (this book’s co-editor and the namesake of the Laffer Curve). These are the advocates of what has become known as “supply-side economics”—a fancy name for a markedly freer economy with incentive to produce. They are pitted against the Keynesians (e.g., Walter Heller), who actually believe that people work harder and invest more the more they are taxed. They debate the Kemp-Roth bill, the Laffer Curve, Proposition 13, capital-gains taxes, and President Carter’s original energy plan. It is more or less a rout.