I couldn't help but notice the contrast

I read today, at EnlightenNJ, an interesting post on the Massachusetts flat income tax and Rhode Island's effort to get rid of their progressive income tax and employ a flat tax. Enlighten's post contains substantial information complete with references to his data and presents a solid supply siders point of view on taxation. Today I also read John Farmer's column in the Star Ledger which is the antithesis of Enlightens post. I urge all of you to contrast enlighten's post with John Farmers column in today's Star Ledger.

Take supply-side economics. It holds that if you slash federal taxes deeply enough, the surge in economic activity will more than make up the revenue lost from the tax cuts. It's a belief devoutly offered by conservatives as a kind of panacea for the ills of society. Any criticism of supply-side theory brings conservatives rushing to the barricades, as I discovered last week after suggesting that it really doesn't work as advertised.

Actually, I described it as bunk -- concocted to provide intellectual cover for the Republican Party's payoffs to its wealthy individual and corporate backers. Supply-side economics, I implied, bears as much relevance to true economics as intelligent design does to true science.

When I read this I just had to go back to John's previous column to see the facts and figures he used to justify calling supply side economics "bunk". I scoured Farmers column looking high and low for his foundation arguments and this is what I found:

It's the great idea advanced by the loonies on the right, the supply- siders who number among their true believers the gnomes laboring away in cubicles at Forbes magazine and the Wall Street Journal editorial page. It's faith-based economics, just the kind you'd expect George W. Bush to embrace. And it's bunk -- as the $350 billion (and growing) annual budget deficit makes clear.

So it appears that the entire basis for Mr. Farmer's argument is "loonies", "gnomes" and a $350 billion deficit. Mr. Farmer is being disingenuous and is trying to mask the true success of supply side economics. Simply put supply side economics is the theory that if you cut taxes the money not sent into government will generate economic activity that will increase revenues to the government. It has nothing to do with deficits. Deficits, as anyone living in New Jersey can tell you, come from unrestricted spending. Yes, there is nothing like a well thought out and reasoned argument. I just wish that a Ledger columnist besides Mulshine would make one.