Correspondence
large as me." Yet do-gooders were unimpressed and once again attempted to spoil Thanksgiving dinner for the rest of us by droning on about the woebegone American Indians' penurious lives. Seven...
...Our only failure is in only going half the way...
...This talk of supply-side economics can and will produce no intelligent vision of the social and economic future...
...It always has...
...Small wonder Representative Kemp can report "We are all supplysiders now"--er, except for Professor Stein...
...Roscoe R. Nix, identified by the venerable Washington Post as "the normally mildmannered president of the Montgomery County chapter of the NAACP," became cacelocutionist of the month when he declared that the public's opposition to a county ban on South African wine "proves what many of us in the black community already know: That affluent, racist rodents who live in Bethesda, Chevy Chase, and RockviUe are more a t h r e a t . . , than the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazi Party...
...and 4) a rejection of the policies of promoting sunrise and executing sunset industries under federal aegis and of retraining people to function more effectively in the economy...
...Whether you call it SupplySide Economics, Reaganomics, neoclassical economic theory, or just plain old common sense economics, it works...
...Often, producers bring forth products that do not sell, that frighten or threaten to trap people into patterns of consumption which they reject: J-cars, nuclear power plants, $40-per-barrel synthetic fuels...
...What incentives have these youngsters to learn, if their lot is to be consumers, or workers in enterprise zones where the pay is below minimum wage...
...Just finished reading your monumental symposium on Supply-Side Economics...
...The community must recognize this danger and seek to quarantine i t . " The Rev...
...They may wear Brooks Brothers suits . . . . But they are very dangerous to Montgomery County's racial climate...
...The pro-growth version of supplyside economics touts the need for investments and for miracles of production, like the development of new resources through technology...
...I congratulate you and your journal...
...but these elites also speculate on the markets for stocks, commodities, and art...
...And, thanks to the recovery, significantly lower inflation, and the personal tax rate reductions, working Americans are keeping more and more of their personal income...
...The real problem is federal spending...
...and more than that face the prospect of maturing in incomplete homes...
...Money can be left in the hands of elites, on the theory that they will invest it creatively...
...mA.L...
...This is a great work and important...
...Currently, the United States is experiencing an ecomJmic recovery so strong that it exceeds the 1961 record recovery...
...Raimi South field, Michigan The distinguished contributors to November's TAS forum cannot agree what the supply side is" a) keystone of the economics of growth...
...If lenders do not offer money at affordable rates, and people refuse to "save" at institutions that can offer lower rates, then commerce will die...
...We have made a great start, and at this point, it does not make sense to give up...
...b) an invalid assertion that a large across the board reduction of individual income taxes in an economy of continental size will probably result in an increase in revenue, or at least an increase in total revenue plus saving...
...Alan Reynolds points out in his commentary on supply-side economics, federal borrowing in the first two quarters of the recovery this year fell from 33 to 21 percent of private savings...
...RET Supply-Side Reality The question you raise in your November 1983 Symposium--"Is Supply-Side Economics Dead...
...Consumers can only react to and ratify elite creativity (Gilder, Wealth and Poverty, p. 53...
...c) an approach to strengthening the private enterprise system which features: 1) steady moderated expansion in the money supply and a contraction of the public sector, including social spending...
...has a very simple answer...
...Political and economic elites experiment creatively in the production of goods and services which will satisfy the inchoate needs and wants of consumers...
...The antiredistributionists omit that social security goes to the retired, who are often bedridden and senile, and who face incessant and inordinate demands to pay for medical care and nursing service...
...Although the federal deficits are large and alarming, it is important to keep them in perspective...
...It fails to inquire whether actual patterns of investment and speculation--heavily in petroleum production and exploration, (continued on page 46) THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JANUARY 1984 7...
...Seven members of the House of Representatives asked the House to impeach the President owing to the continued presence in Grenada of his fact-finding mission (see the accompanying picture...
...2) a belief that technology will overcome frequent shortages and yield new resources...
...The original application of supplyside economicsmsometimes called Reaganomics--proposed lower marginal tax rates, less government spending, fewer government regulations, and a stable monetary policy...
...In fact, the growth in real GNP for the third quarter of 1983 was at an annualized rate of 7.9 percent...
...We may not have gone far enough in implementing some of these provisions--such as less government spending and a stable monetary policy--but what we have done is working...
...But, even with good news, deficits must be reduced...
...The antiredistributionist version protects capitalist incentives...
...This doctrine is misleading...
...People both produce and consume individually, in families, and in institutions...
...Through sustained economic growth--the sort we have now--and less government spending, we can get the deficits under control...
...The Say's Law version of supply-side, advocated by George Gilder and Professor Galbraith, holds that there are two basic classes: producers and consumers of goods...
...It is clear that supplyside economics--which never promised instant miracles--is working...
...Every supply-side school offers parallel fallacies...
...Robert W. Kasten, Jr...
...It does not inquire into the need for incentives to care for parents or progeny, handicapped kin, or indigent friends...
...3) a rejection of income redistribution...
...When money circulates among the elites, many of the masses will remain unemployed, not benefiting at all from elite "creativity...
...The inflation rate for the last 12 months was less than 3 percent...
...United States Senate Washington, D.C...
...d) an idea too sublime to be appreciated by the liberal left or the media...
...As Dr...
...These are not failed economic policies...
...and if their parents drift from public assistance to low wage jobs and back again...
...Jesse Jackson's vice presidential candidate has been found...
...Likewise, they borrow and lend...
...Endless talk about incentives is largely irrelevant to the realities of American civic life: more than a third of children born out of wedlock in several major cities...
...And Mr...
Vol. 17 • January 1984 • No. 1
