Volume 1.1 - Election Issues - Fall 1996

Title: Bob Dole's Economic Plan: A Critique

Author: Robert M. Coen

Abstract: Tax reduction and simplification have obvious popular appeal. Who, after all, would not like to be able to keep more of what they earn and spend less time preparing their taxes? If tax cuts largely pay for themselves by stimulating more work effort and higher productivity, who could oppose them? Bob Dole asks us to recollect the 1980's when the Reagan tax cuts ushered in a decade of renewed growth and prosperity that "helped restore America's greatness." He argues that we can and should re-Reaganize economic policy. While Dole and his supporters would claim that his program simply applies basic ideas of free market Economics 101, the teachings of which are allegedly borne out by the economic history of the 1980's, neither economic theory nor experience offers much support that the predicted outcomes will be realized.

About the Author: Robert M. Coen is a Professor of Economics at Northwestern University.

Chicago Policy Review
The Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies
1155 E. 60th Street, suite 13, Chicago, IL 60637
Voice: (773) 834-0901 Fax: (773) 834-1162
Chicago Policy Review