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The Growth Experiment: How the New Tax Policy Is Transforming the U.S. Economy, by Lawrence B. Lindsey (Basic, 253 pp., $21.95)

COMMON SENSE has become a defunct branch of most scientific disciplines. This is particularly true of economics, where the reigning orthodoxy does not admit that punitive taxation affects the behavior of taxpayers. The Carter Administration, whose economics was even more confused than its foreign policy, followed conventional wisdom when it resisted even modest relief for middle-income families who were being ratcheted by inflation into ever-higher brackets. The reasoning was that the loss of revenue would widen the deficit. The result was higher inflation, more unemployment—and the election of Ronald Reagan.

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George Sim Johnston

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The Growth Experiment: How the New Tax Policy Is Transforming the U.S. Economy, by Lawrence B. Lindsey (Basic, 253 pp., $21.95)

COMMON SENSE has become a defunct branch of most scientific disciplines. This is particularly true of economics, where the reigning orthodoxy does not admit that punitive taxation affects the behavior of taxpayers. The Carter Administration, whose economics was even more confused than its foreign policy, followed conventional wisdom when it resisted even modest relief for middle-income families who were being ratcheted by inflation into ever-higher brackets. The reasoning was that the loss of revenue would widen the deficit. The result was higher inflation, more unemployment—and the election of Ronald Reagan.