Many economists believe that the burden of high taxes has a damaging impact on the economy. One of them is an economics historian at the University of California, Berkeley, named Christina Romer. And Romer was just tapped by Obama to head the Council of Economic Advisers.
So because we're in a hopeful mood, perhaps Obama is the leader we need to rein in spending and usher in a new age of fiscal responsibility. This is a theoretical discussion, after all.
"Politics is often backwards," Brian S. Wesbury, former chief economist for the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress, recently told National Review Online. "For example, only Richard Nixon could go to China, only Bill Clinton (or a democrat) could sign welfare reform, and only George Bush could introduce a hugely expensive new drug entitlement."
Fiscal conservatives lived through years of a Republican administration that spent massively, expanded entitlements massively and then offered massive bailouts. Perhaps the progressive wing of the Democratic Party will be similarly disappointed during the next four to eight years.
Indeed. It is a time of hope.