Tax cuts are based on a politically unsound philosophy, which has never worked in history.

Pro picked a very good topic and provided much to discuss throughout the debate. He is off to a good start on ddo, and I urge him to continue with tough debate challenges. I enjoyed the debate; Pro made me do my homework. The resolution is "Tax cuts are based on a politically unsound philosophy, which has never worked in history." He starts by saying the philosophy he claims to be unsound is "tax cutting" and that it has a "fatal flaw" in that approach. He explains that "a conservative approach to government couples low taxation with low spending." I agree that is the conservative approach to governing. He then claims "The fatal flaw comes when spending does not decrease." He cites Bush and Reagan under whom taxes were cut, but spending increased. He says that "Cutting taxes, when combined with minimal spending is a wonderful Keynesian concept. However, that crucial coupling is yet to occur ..." When Pro says it is a "wonderful concept" he concedes that minimal spending coupled with low taxation would be a sound political philosophy, meaning it would produce surpluses, if it was a practical approach. He further claims that "cutting taxes has never worked." He gave an example of how, by simple math, more taxes produce more revenue. Pro's resolution is therefore negated if I can provide a single example of budget surpluses produced by minimal spending coupled with low taxes and a single example of revenue increasing when taxes are lowered. I provided four examples of budget surpluses produced as a combination of low taxes coupled with minimal spending. They are (1) the Clinton era, after the 1997 tax cuts; (2) in the 1920s when there were 10 years of surplus; (3) in present-day Switzerland; (4) and in present-day Virginia. Pro rebutted that while it is true that there were surpluses after the 1997 tax cuts, it was due to Federal Reserve policies; he argued that he could not find enough information to counter the examples of 1920s and Switzerland, and he claimed that the surplus in Virginia was not a product of the massive spending cuts enacted while keeping taxes down, but rather due to the Stimulus Plan . In a debate, if good evidence is provided to substantial a contention, and the opponent cannot find counter evidence, then the contention stands. In this debate I used nothing but the Internet for research, so it was perfectly fair. Therefore the examples of the 1920s and of Switzerland defeat Pro's contention that tax cuts have never been combined with minimal spending to produce surpluses. They were substantiated with good unrefuted evidence. I agree with Pro that there was a lot more than tax policy going on during the Clinton years, but it is nonetheless clear that lower taxes always promote economic growth, because private spending is more efficient than government spending. Pro ultimately agreed with that principle. That principle applies to the Clinton era, so no matter what else was going on, lower taxes promoted growth and growth produces more taxes. As to Virginia, the Stimulus threw in a few dollars, but it was the massive cuts and minimal taxation that accomplished the surplus. Forty-eight other states received the Stimulus and had deficits. (North Dakota had a surplus for reasons other than taxes and spending.) Pro's other key contention was that tax cuts always reduce revenues. Pro ultimately agreed that the Laffer curve is a correct theory, and the curve determines whether increasing taxes will increase or decrease tax revenues. That defeats Pro's contention that it is unsound to advocate tax cuts. the specifics are arguable, but it is sound to make the argument. Beyond that I offered four examples of tax cuts increasing revenues: the 1920s, the Kennedy cuts of 1964, the Reagan era, and the Clinton era. Pro said he could find no counter evidence to the 1920s example, even after I provided the Google search key that produces dozens of references. In the 20s, tax rate were very high, so the country was clearly on the down side of the Laffer curve. Pro did not refute the example. Pro conceded that revenues rose in the Reagan era, but said they might have been more with a different set of economic policies. Perhaps they might have been more, but Pro's contention that tax cuts always reduce revenues is disproved. Pro didn't dispute the Clinton era rise in revenues, but attributed them to Fed policy. Pro raised an interesting argument with respect to the Kennedy tax cuts. The data I presented showed that tax revenues, measured in dollars, rose in each of the three years following the tax cuts. Pro argued that revenues should be measured as percentage of GDP, not in dollars. That is very, very wrong. Let's consider two hypothetical tax policies, A and B. Let's suppose that when policy A is implemented, tax revenue rise from 50 to 60 and GDP rises from 200 to 300. Policy B causes revenues to rise from 50 to 60, but GDP falls from 200 to 150. By the standard of percent of GDP, policy B is a blazing success, because by devastating the economy it managed to grab a higher percentage of GDP! Pro has the argument backwards. We want the government to get more revenue to perform it's necessary functions, but a lower percentage of GDP so the citizens have more money to spend and invest. Originally, Pro implied that cutting spending was a political impossibility, so therefore a policy of minimal spending was impractical. During the debate I introduced evidence that profligate spenders including California, Greece, and Spain had cut spending, and also "Sweden, Finland, Canada and, most recently, Ireland, have cut their government budgets." Politicians don't like to cut spending, but that doesn't mean it is not sound policy. They will do it when the alternative appears worse. Pro claimed that I was using misleading statistics throughout the debate. His prime example involves his misreading a table in his own reference, in which he mistakenly thought the column in a table that gave the Federal deficit as a percentage of GDP was something else. I pointed out the error, but he did not acknowledge it. When economic professors at Harvard produce a study that concludes "in developed countries, spending cuts were the key to successful fiscal adjustments — and were generally better for the economy than tax increases." we are assured that the once-controversial philosophy of minimal spending and low taxes has entered the mainstream. All of Pro's contentions have been defeated. The resolution is affirmed.