What do Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan, and the current US Congress have in common with Joseph Stalin?
No, it’s not that they are dead.
Recently I appeared on one of those TV shows where a right-wing host interrupts the guest frequently. (Not that I had realized what it was. I had not heard of the guy, Glen Beck, and the producer had only told me they wanted me to talk about Washington’s reaction to new recession fears.) On the show I said I thought it would be a good idea if the recipients of tax rebates this time around included lower-income Americans, at least those workers who did not make enough to pay income taxes, but who did pay payroll (social security) taxes. This would be in contrast to the last 7 years of tax cuts which have left these people out. The TV host’s reaction was “Welcome to the show Mr. Stalin.” A media watch site called Media Matters for America picked this up, as an egregious comment even by the standards of talk show hosts. Of course the Democratic and Republican leadership of Congress, with the encouragement of the White House, have decided to include precisely these lower-income workers in the tax cuts this time. So I guess they are Stalinists. And Milton Friedman originally proposed the negative income tax, which was enacted as the Earned Income Tax Credit, and became highly successful when expanded by Ronald Reagan (1986) and Bill Clinton (1993). Quite a few Stalinists around!