Stimulate This

Do tax cuts stimulate the economy? Uhhh, maybe not. They sure don't appear to be helping the deficit. Perfesser Mark comments on the latest flat-tax nuttiness from Steve Forbes (08.15.05) [ed. - to be fair to the Perfesser, the colored blinking text was not in the original. Thank goodness.]:

"For anyone wearing magic spell protection, it is obvious that this is a recipe for fiscal disaster. Haven’t the deficits of Reagan and Bush, and Bush taught us anything? Here’s the trick for shaking off the spell. As you look at the graph below, say to yourself again and again: Look at the red part of the line... Look at the red part of the line... Look at the red part of the line... Look at the red part of the line... Look at the red part of the line..." A Flat Tax Recipe for Disaster

The graph is from zFacts.com, who says that the data "'were taken directly from the White House web site and plotted without modification.'" Mark checked, and found that "the graph is a plot of the OMB Gross National Debt numbers in Historical Table 7-1." Not enough for ya? Here's more.