Today (April 27), Thom referenced the ex-director of the Cato Institute, a William Niskanen, and an essay that he wrote in regards to tax cuts and the growth of government (when taxes have been cut, government grows; when taxes increase, government actually becomes smaller). I did a fruitless Google search on Niskanen, then went to the Cato Institute web page to see if I could find the article. I cannot find it. I am not a relentless searcher, nor overly sophisticated in my search techniques, so it is possible I have just missed it. Can someone help me? I would like a url for the essay so I can forward it to a thinking conservative friend of mine (no, that is no an oxymoron). Thanks to anyone who can help.
"Renaissance Thinking About the Issues of Our Day"
Comments
I found this article by Niskanen:
"Starve the Beast" Just Does Not Work
And in an article in the Atlantic, Jonathan Rauch alleges Niskanen wrote that there was “no sign that deficits have ever acted as a constraint on spending.” However, I have been unable to find the original source for the quote.
This is as close to the original source that I found.
Art, perhaps you hit the "save" button prematurely?
Or does the empty page suggest you found ... nothing?
Sorry. The link is embedded in the text. (When the text is blue, that means you can click on it).
I found this article by Niskanen:
"Starve the Beast" Just Does Not Work
And in an article in the Atlantic, Jonathan Rauch alleges Niskanen wrote that there was “no sign that deficits have ever acted as a constraint on spending.” However, I have been unable to find the original source for the quote.
Thank you. Your link made it possible to extend my search, and I found the original article. The article can be found at http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj26n3/cj26n3-8.pdf
Sorry. The link is embedded in the text. (When the text is blue, that means you can click on it).
Ahh ... now I see. How do you <i>do</i> that? Anyway, your link seems to be an executive summary, whereas the the one I found is in six pages of pdf format and includes graphs and charts!
I agree that was a great little factoid nugget from Thom.
I too wanted to find the original articles that Thom mentioned. I finally got the pdf original you mention.
Then, by searching for "Starve The Beast" at the Cato archives I also found a follow-up article, a 9-page pdf file, in the Cato Journal from last fall titled, "Starve the Beast: A Further Examination" by Michael J. New. He basically rechecks Niskanen's study and confirms the results, here: http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj29n3/cj29n3-7.pdf. (Sorry I didn't figure out how to embed.)
Thank you Thom! I just started listening and man is it refreshing!
~a new listener in Houston.