A dynamic new approach for the Tories?

The debate about taxes was successfully closed down by Gordon Brown when he persuaded the Tories to equate tax cuts with instability. Actually, even Brown didn’t go this far – this “instability” point was Oliver Letwin’s. Even now, when the disastrous effects of Brown’s economic policy are painfully clear, it’s still hard to get a debate going about an alternative approach. So it was with much excitement that I picked up Art Laffer’s latest book in New York last week – the sort of title you just don’t see in Britain. “The End of Prosperity: How Higher Taxes Will Doom the Economy — If We Let it Happen”. He gives a taste of it in a WSJ article today, and makes a crucial case which the Tories should be making here: that state intervention will do more harm than good in the long term.  As he says

“Whenever the government bails someone out of trouble, they always put someone into trouble, plus of course a toll for the troll.