supply side i had some time on my hands recently. so i read a bit about the history of supply side economics. economics is a fun thing. or would be if we could strip away the human psychology part and strip it to bare mathematics. however that seems to be impossible. anywho, before sse there was keynesianism. which worked pretty well. but you don't get your picture on the cover of the economist for regurgitating what everyone already knows. or even for incrementally refining the status quo. you get the klieg lights when you turn the world on its head. many people were trying to do this. they were called cranks crackpots and worse. most of them deserved it. and worse. anywho, some interesting nuggets were found. like separating tax rates and tax revenue. that led to the observation that under some (very limited) circumstances you can lower taxes and increase revenue. that's sort of on a par with quantum tunneling. it can happen. but not for baseballs and glass windows. anywho, consider the perpetual predicament of the politician. always under pressure to lower taxes. and simultaneously raise revenues. pre-sse that was thought to be impossible. but lo! a miracle! and one of the first people to get the message was none other than dick cheney. now i can only imagine that conversation. a nice economist trying to make his mark on the world and a young ambitious future shadow leader of the formerly free world. cheney's smart. he knew sse was bunk. but at some point during the meeting a light went on inside his head. he realized this was snake oil he could sell. he took it to kemp and reagan. among others. kemp-roth if you're old enough to remember or are a student of history, lowered the top tier tax rate from 70% to 50%. biographies of people behind it describe it as a trojan horse to get lower taxes for the rich. and boom. cutting taxes is a panacea. the solution to a slow down is to cut taxes. the response to a boom is to cut taxes more. both can't be right.  ¶ 8:00 AM