Which Dead Idea Goes First?
When I was reading through the seven Dead Ideas in Matt's book, I got most excited about "Your Company Should Take Care of You" and "Taxes Hurt the Economy (and They're Always Too High)." That's partly because they're the chapters are full of wonderful historical detail--about the rise of the corporate welfare state in the U.S. and past debates over tax policy--that I wasn't very familiar with. It's also because the ideas are so flawed and the fixes so straightforward: Get employers out of pension and health care provision, and raise our taxes enough to pay for what we want government to accomplish.
But Robert Litan's second thoughts about the inevitability of higher taxes got me second-thinking too. My reactions to a book like this aren't very good proxies for what the likely political realities are. So I'm curious, Matt (and all you TPMCafe commenters): Which of your Dead Ideas do you think are likely to keel over first?
I haven't read the book, but at this point surely at least some members of the elite are beginning to realize that the biggest "dead idea" of all may be bourgeoisie civilization?
Or maybe not. That would take a level of self awareness that elites are rarely capable of.
March 25, 2009 10:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Aren't the elite, themselves, the biggest "dead idea" of all?
March 25, 2009 11:30 AM | Reply | Permalink