Final Word on the Gas Tax Holiday
From Milton Friedman...
"I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible."
Screw the 200 economists who oppose the gas tax holiday, I'll cast my lot with Uncle Milty.
UPDATE: Mankiw thinks the only possible explanations for advocating the gas tax holiday are ignorance, hubris or mendacity. Why would he say such awful things about Milton Friedman? Seriously though, notice the hubris that Mankiw exhibits, academic economists are the "experts" and thus ought to carry the day. They are the only people who could possibly be correct, they are the annointed. So the people who brought us the Phillips Curve , only to repudiate it, kind of, later; the people who write incessantly about ending poverty but never seem to end any poverty; the people who chronically warn us over the trade deficit although the richest nation the world has ever seen has run trade deficits nearly continually for more than a century; the people who elevate John Kenneth Galbraith the heights of their profession despite a stunning capacity to get it totally wrong. The people who tell us that unionization has kept wages high when union membership has fallen precipitously precisely over the time period where standards of living have exploded. The people who...OK, you get the point. Frankly, I gotta side with Hillary on this one, and I'll harken to Buckley's preferrence to be governed by the first 100 names in the Boston phonebook rather than by the Harvard faculty. So, basically I am advocating a "screw the experts" view on this one, a view which history tells us would put us in pretty good straits.
Finally, I think a smart candidate could neutralize all this academic elitism by claiming that Milton Friedman is now their chief economic advisor and reference the quote above. I doubt Hillary would cotton on to this, but it is not too late for John McCain. Hey, he's the straight talk guy after all, isn't he?
"I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible."
Screw the 200 economists who oppose the gas tax holiday, I'll cast my lot with Uncle Milty.
UPDATE: Mankiw thinks the only possible explanations for advocating the gas tax holiday are ignorance, hubris or mendacity. Why would he say such awful things about Milton Friedman? Seriously though, notice the hubris that Mankiw exhibits, academic economists are the "experts" and thus ought to carry the day. They are the only people who could possibly be correct, they are the annointed. So the people who brought us the Phillips Curve , only to repudiate it, kind of, later; the people who write incessantly about ending poverty but never seem to end any poverty; the people who chronically warn us over the trade deficit although the richest nation the world has ever seen has run trade deficits nearly continually for more than a century; the people who elevate John Kenneth Galbraith the heights of their profession despite a stunning capacity to get it totally wrong. The people who tell us that unionization has kept wages high when union membership has fallen precipitously precisely over the time period where standards of living have exploded. The people who...OK, you get the point. Frankly, I gotta side with Hillary on this one, and I'll harken to Buckley's preferrence to be governed by the first 100 names in the Boston phonebook rather than by the Harvard faculty. So, basically I am advocating a "screw the experts" view on this one, a view which history tells us would put us in pretty good straits.
Finally, I think a smart candidate could neutralize all this academic elitism by claiming that Milton Friedman is now their chief economic advisor and reference the quote above. I doubt Hillary would cotton on to this, but it is not too late for John McCain. Hey, he's the straight talk guy after all, isn't he?
posted by Donny Baseball at 2:07 PM
2 Comments:
Just thought I'd point out that Milton Friedman is in favor of gasoline taxes. Cf. http://blog.adamnash.com/2006/11/05/qa-with-milton-friedman-education-health-care-iraq/
Thanks. But this is not an air-tight refutation. There is a critical distiction b/t the existence of the tax versus the level of the tax. MF was Ok with the existence of the gasoline tax as better economics than other tax methodologies. I am quite certain that MF would find the level of today's gas tax too high and be in favor of a cut in it, especially since it feeds a corrupt and undemocratic process of government. MF would probably feel the gas tax holiday is an empty gesture, but I doubt he would say that no gas tax holiday is better.
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