Bruce Bartlett, Keynsian?

Bruce Bartlett, semi-repentant supply-sider and quasi neo-Keynsian, on one of many valuable taboos Republicans blew through:

Indeed, by destroying the balanced budget constraint, starve-the-beast theory actually opened the flood gates of spending. As I explained in a recent column, a key reason why deficits restrained spending in the past is because they led to politically unpopular tax increases. But if, as Republicans now maintain, taxes must never be increased at any time for any reason then there is never any political cost to raising spending and cutting taxes at the same time, as the Bush 43 administration and a Republican Congress did year after year.

This is by way of long intro to Barlett's new book, The New American Economy.