SOMETHING I DISAGREE WITH.

SOMETHING I DISAGREE WITH. This posting on the Volokh Conspiracy blog challenges the view “that the more the public deliberates, the better the chances are of getting things right.” The reason it gives is that the public cannot easily understand social theory. The example the posting uses is the debate over Bush’s tax cuts. The Democrats argued that Bush was trying to help his rich friends; the Republicans argued that voters could make better spending decisions than bureaucrats. Thus the debate was never about economics. The posting has drawn a lot of comments and there is a book supporting the posting so we will probably hear more of this argument. I’m glad to have something to disagree with. I have always taken it as true that voters will do a good job of getting things right and that a free press will help them do that. I submit the tax cut debate is an example of good public decision making. There is no consensus among economists on tax cuts so that there is no governing social theory that is being ignored. Income redistribution and the size of government are important arguments on each side of the tax cut. The post leaves out that the most important debate on this issue will be afterwards, on the consequences of the tax cut, on what has happened to the economy. The public will judge by the results. I do think that there are a lot of problems with public discourse, but the ability of the public to understand issues is not one of them. In fact, I have always thought that the level of debate in the typical lunch counter is likely to be better than the discussions on Sunday morning television.