George Bush has proven himself a fanatic -- a fanatical conservative, and fanatical Christian Evangelical -- and one area in which this fanaticism is most evident is on the economy and his absolute, unquestioning devotion to the magic of tax cuts. Derided by his father as "voodoo economics", Bush's repeated assertions that tax cuts are the elixir for whatever ails you have continued unabated as the deficit has exploded and the economy's performance has remained sluggish.

The basic ideas aren't new; they were proposed in the late 70's by a number of journalists and cranks (some of whom were both) as a selling point for tax cuts without simultaneous spending cuts. The ideas were dubbed "supply-side economics" (which was unfortunately confused with a more respectable set of notions emphasizing investment). According to the crank doctrine, taxes at their current rates so overburden the economy that cutting them will unleash unheard-of levels of economic performance -- so much so, that government revenue would actually increase, and we could "grow our way out of the deficit".

So, as you can probably tell, the ideas aren't new, and in fact have been tried and abandoned several times. You wouldn't know it from listening to hard-line tax wingnuts, though. Such people can always find (or invent) bogus evidence for their views.

Which brings us to the current occupant of the White House. A growing number of people are noticing that, on virtually every topic, Bush is a True Believer conservative. He simply refuses to re-evaluate any notion or belief based upon new data. Such is his evident belief that tax cuts will result in a slashed deficit.

The late Steve Kangas examined this issue in detail, and true to form, marshalled an impressive array of statistics to demonstrate the fallacy of crank supply-side economics. So without further ado, let me present his piece on the topic: Myth: Tax Cuts Increase Tax Collections (part of his encyclopaedic site, Liberalism Resurgent).

If only we could convince Incurious George to read something new...

Just a few odds and ends, now that I have the time. Let's see...

Is there anyone out there now who isn't familiar with the dramatically bad turn events in Iraq have taken lately? No? Good. Then I won't dwell, except to say that we all hope for the best for our troops and the Iraqis we're supposedly trying to help.

Looks like Bush is still stonewalling the 9/11 commission, both refusing to give up the text of Condi Rice's speech (you know, the one she was due to give on 9/11 that said we were over-emphasizing the threats from terrorism) and lying about the commission's alleged previous unwillingness to attend Dr. Rice's private testimony. Par for the course, I guess: the rule of thumb seems to be that whatever the Bushies say is very, very likely to not check out.

On an unrelated note, I got quite a kick out of hearing Bush campaign staffers refer to "Kerry's growing credibility gap" on economic matters.

Who writes your material, guys? If I may make a suggestion, you might tell them to use something that doesn't immediately remind people of Bush's own, well-known and documented credibility chasm. When you say things like this, it invites scorn and laughter (not friendly, either), and that's something all the cash in the world can't fix.

By contrast, Kerry's proposing a combination of tax-cut-rollbacks for the truly wealthy and spending caps. Certainly a sensible start, but it remains to be seen whether it will be enough. Frankly, the looming deficit created by Bush's true-believer voodoo economics tax cuts are gargantuan, and it's likely even more drastic measures will be necessary. Though Bush likely refuses to believe it, tax cuts do not spur the economy such that you end up with greater revenue.

Ah, well. We'll have more this weekend...

Looks like Rove may have something new to sweat about. The 9/11 fiasco is having a delayed impact in the polls, but the impact appears to be there:

Date	Favorable	Not Favorable	Undecided	Haven't Heard Enough	Don't Know/No Answer
3/10-14/04	43%	39%	15%	2%	1%
3/30-4/1/04	39%	42%	16%	2%	1%

This marks the first time that Bush's "favorable" rating is less than his "unfavorable" rating in any poll. Now, this most recent change in the CBS poll is within the margin of error; however, if it becomes a trend, then Bush's massive campaign ad blitz may amount to so much wasted cash.

I guess we can look for a new "Kerry scandal" sometime soon...

Pincus and Milbank nail it this morning:

...the broad outline of Clarke's criticism has been corroborated by a number of other former officials, congressional and commission investigators, and by Bush's admission in the 2003 Bob Woodward book "Bush at War" that he "didn't feel that sense of urgency" about Osama bin Laden before the attacks occurred.

In addition, a review of dozens of declassified citations from Clarke's 2002 testimony provides no evidence of contradiction, and White House officials familiar with the testimony agree that any differences are matters of emphasis, not fact. Indeed, the declassified 838-page report of the 2002 congressional inquiry includes many passages that appear to bolster the arguments Clarke has made.

All of a sudden, I think we'll find that "it's the economy, stupid!" will become the central focus of the Bush campaign.