Probably the most well known and influential intellectual guru of the neo-liberal movement is a really old guy named Milton Friedman. This founder of the "Chicago School" of economics layed the intellectual groundwork for the monetary policy and Reaganomics that are taken for granted today--Friedman had already become so influential by the mid 1970's, in fact, that when Henry Kissenger arranged the coup that installed the bloodthirsty Augusto Pinochet as the Doctor Doom figure of Argentina, Friedman and his team of conservative economic homies were allowed to head on down south of the border to put their new theories to test under tightly controlled circumstances and eventually claimed success: the Argentine wealthy got wealthier. (I must mention Friedman's well known book "Capitalism and Freedom" here; the book argues that democracy and capitalism are naturally linked somehow and that's why it's the best system for all--so I don't really know how they could have claimed "success" in junta land, but I guess that's just how logic has worked for the last fifty years or so.) Several years after their South American miracle, Ronald Reagan was elected President of the United States. The rest is history.

A little known theory of Friedman's is that conservative legislators ought to cut as many taxes as they can such that legislatures have no choice but to eventually cut programs and social services--in Friedman's view, the government should have an extremely limited role: roads, military, protection from monopoly, and that's about it. Cutting social programs is unpopular. Therefore, taxes should be used as legislative extortion.

That's why the President's HUGE tax cut for the wealthy that was announced today got me thinking. It was two times larger than what what most Republicans were shooting for.

I wonder...

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