Another Look at Economic Data

Courtesy of the Queen of Some Evil, who got it from She Who Usually Will be Obeyed, I noticed an editorial that was published in the Detroit News.  (The link is to the Furled version, in case the DetNews pulls the article.  The link to the original is here.)  It actually wasn't written by anyone at the (conservative) Detroit News.  It was written by Donald Luskin.  He is identified as the chief investment officer of Trend Macrolytics LLC, an independent economics and investment-research firm in Menlo Park, Calif.  I suppose that makes him qualified to comment on matters economic, although I wonder how impartial he can be. 

The gist of the editorial is that the <air quotes>Bush tax cuts</air quotes> are fair, in the opinion of an investment banker.  (The <air quote> tag, for those who haven't read the latest HTML standards, direct the reader to hold up both hands, with palms inclined at a 70% angle to the floor, and gesture up and down with the index and middle fingers together.)  The air quotes are used in this context because, as every high school graduate should know, a tax cut that occurs at the same time as a deficit increase is not really a tax cut.  It is a tax shift, moving taxes from today's taxpayer to the taxpayer of tomorrow. 

Anyway, Mr. Luskin tries to argue that the Democrats have made a false portrayal of the impact of the tax changes.  Read the rest at The Rest of the Story.