Response to Comments: /TotW/Reagan_taxes.html

Both of the quotes-- deficits crowd out private investment and deficits cause high interest rates (more specifically there that lowering deficits cause lower interest rates) are pure Summers, but you are right that "pre-Keynesian" is the correct general label. Bob Eisner and Bill Vickrey spent their lifetimes trying to debunk these kind of standard mantras, that would be ridiculous if not for the fact that they influence policy. They are called "pre-Keynesian" because these generally depend on asssuming full employment. My students in Principles understand this. It is amazing that the same news summary will quote Clinton on paying down the national debt will allow lower interest rates and then report on the Fed will decide whether to raise or lower interest rates, without blinking. But why would Brad contribute to perpetuating such theoretically, empirically, historically, unsupportable views, when he surely knows better?

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