We are already well down the road toward a managed-trade regime. It would be far better to acknowledge that reality, and seek a set of reasonable rul… - Robert Kuttner

I have tried to suggest that injustice is not necessary economics;that the economics can work, and has often worked, when the constituency for it is animated. The politics of equality - that is a little harder.

The total impact of the Reagan tax cuts on capital lowered the effective cost of capital to American industry by an estimated 1.2 percent. Unfortunately, the Laffer curve did not work as advertised. Lower tax rates did not produce more tax revenues. They produced deficits.

Why, then, should we have to lower our living standards? What is the mysterious source of the economic loss? If productivity is increasing, why should we sacrifice services and wages?