Problem Solved!

One of Patrick Appel's readers writes in to explain how McCain will square the circle in dealing with his confused and contradictory economic policies:

I think the way that McCain may well be able to connect the two schools of economic thought, supply side and budget balancing, is to look at what he has said would be his primary priority: restraining federal spending. He has acknowledged that he was wrong to believe that the Bush tax cuts (and previous tax cuts) led to reduced revenues for the Federal government. Clearly, at least in the past 50 or so years, the U.S. has been on the side of the curve where cutting taxes results in increased economic activity which results in greater tax receipts for the Federal government.

This if true would, indeed, be a solution of sorts. But the "if true" part of the previous sentence is carrying a lot of weight it can't bear. Tax cuts don't increase revenue under anything resembling prevailing conditions in the United States. But, yes, I agree with the general spirit of the idea that dishonesty and flim-flam will be McCain's ticket out of the cesspool of ignorance and contradiction in which his economic thinking tends to wallow.