A specter is haunting the Republican Party—the specter of Ronald Reagan.
Ever since his two landslide victories, conservatives have treated it as received wisdom that cutting taxes as much as possible is the onefold path to economic and political nirvana. Well, make that cutting the top tax rate as much as possible. The idea, known as supply-side economics, is that the lower the top rate, the more top earners will work and invest, and the more growth there will be to—keep waiting for it—trickle down to everyone else. Never mind that this hasn't really worked in the past and couldn't even work in the present, at least not that much, now that the top rate is already pretty low. This is still an orthodoxy that Republicans are barely allowed to deviate from, and only then if they say three Hail Reagans as penance.
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