NEW YORK -- I admit it: The money's already spent. I know, I know. I should have waited until that huge GOP windfall actually hit my bank account before going out on a wild tax-cut bender, but I just couldn't help myself. The mere thought of all that budget surplus loot -- trillions! of dollars! just sitting around doing nothing! -- destroyed what little fiscal self-control I used to have.
Fortunately, I did just what Generalissimo George wants us all to do. This is, after all, trickle-down economics redux. It all started in 1980 with Arthur Laffer's famous napkin drawing: If you cut taxes, especially to the rich, Ronald Reagan convinced everybody, they'll spend so much money that the resulting economic activity will more than cancel out all the interest on the national debt that the Treasury has to fork over to Singaporean bondholders. This is how America spent the '80s (pun intended), ended up a trillion bucks in the hole and landed in a decade-long recession.
Just because the application of a theory has always resulted in failure doesn't necessarily mean that the theory itself is flawed. Bush and his Republican junta swear that their tax-cut-and-spend strategy really really really really really really really will work this time. Hell, we'd be fools not to believe them -- so let's start spending and stimulating!