I was very pleased to see Ezra Klein write the following:

I want to be very clear here: I am not saying, and no one should think, that high marginal tax rates drive growth. All else being equal, lower marginal tax rates are probably better for growth, though that can flip if they begin driving large deficits or starving important government functions. But what this graph suggests is that marginal tax rates don’t determine growth in either direction.

I’ve tried to make some version of this point on many occasions, yet I’ve encountered surprising resistance to what strikes me as a fairly well-grounded, consensus view. I assume that Ezra and I have different opinions regarding which government functions are important and what it means to starve them, e.g., what I see as structural reform and spending discipline might be seen by others as unacceptable budget-slashing. Yet I’d love for us to at least agree that cutting tax expenditures is the first-best way to raise revenues.