“Nor should the argument seem strange that taxation may be so high as to defeat its object, and that, given sufficient time to gather the fruits, a reduction of taxation will run a better chance than an increase of balancing the budget. For to take the opposite view today is to resemble a manufacturer who, running at a loss, decides to raise his price, and when his declining sales increase the loss, wrapping himself in the rectitude of plain arithmetic, decides that prudence requires him to raise the price still more—and who, when at last his account is balanced with nought on both sides, is still found righteously declaring that it would have been the act of a gambler to reduce the price when you were already making a loss.” 1933 Essay: The Means to Prosperity, section I: The nature of the problem, p338, The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes, Macmillan Cambridge University Press, 1972
[Cf. Daniel J. Mitchell's post: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/a-victory-for-the-laffer-curve-a-defeat-for-englands-economy]
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