It seems like I will have to make reading Daniel Gross a routine part of my diet. Dan says exactly what was on my mind yesterday after reading Mankiw's piece in the journal. I could not believe that I agreed with five of Mankiw's seven resolutions for the Congress:
#1: This year I will be straight about the budget mess. I know that the federal budget is on an unsustainable path.
#3: This year I will ask farmers to accept the free market. I will vote to repeal all federal subsidies to growers of corn, wheat, cotton, soybeans and rice.
#4: This year I will admit that there are some good taxes. I will tell the American people that a higher tax on gasoline is better at encouraging conservation than are heavy-handed CAFE regulations. I will advocate a carbon tax as the best way to control global warming.
Of course, as Dan points out where was Mankiw's audacity to say all of this when he was in Washington, and in a position of authority?
It would have been nice if Mankiw had the fortitude to speak these obvious, eternal truths when he was actually in a position to influence policy. But did he shout from the rooftops that the fiscal course established by the president and the Republican Congress would lead either to massive benefits or massive tax increases? And he did say which choice he favored? Did he -- publicly or privately -- urge that all federal subsidies for farmers of corn, wheat, cotton, soybeans and rice, who are concentrated in Republican-dominated states, be repealed? Did he -- publicly or privately -- call for an increase in higher gasoline taxes and a carbon tax to combat global warning? Um, lets see, so far as I can tell, no, no, no, and no.
A far more interesting piece would have been a first-person account of: (1) how Mankiw tried to bring up these eternal, obvious truths and was repeatedly shot down or ignored; or (2) why he didn't bother to try to bring up these eternal, obvious truths.
Here it is, three days into the new year, and he's already got me violating one of my own resolutions: to stop screaming and pulling my hair out when I read the Wall Street Journal editorial page.
So true.
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