Individuals with lower incomes will likely spend that money immediately, but the remainder of the population will probably save its share. For immediate results, he continued, tax cuts should aim to encourage spending on business capital. Such investment will lead to higher productivity and higher wages, which in turn will boost consumption. I hope that they can come back in later and do some of those things. J. Harvie Wilkinson III, chief judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, delivered the sixth of the Institute s 2000-2001 Bradley Lectures on March 5.
Edited excerpts follow.
Many respected figures in the legal profession question whether there is any longer a distinctive conservative jurisprudence. It is said that the contemporary jurisprudence of conservatism now lacks principled foundations. It is contended that we have become attached to ends, not means, and that we have become politicized to the point of undertaking activist ventures to achieve ideologically congenial results. If this were true, it would be most unfortunate. But I do not believe it is.