Wednesday items.

On Forbes, Ralph Benko skewers Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s quantitative easing plan.

At The WSJ, Michael Boskin explains the data that support tax rate cuts over spending stimulus.

On The Kudlow Report, Jerry Bowyer defends the eurozone and calls for sound money and lower taxes:




The WSJ editorial board notes the harm higher top tax rates do to job creators.

On NRO’s Corner, Cato’s Mark Calabria rebuts David Beckworth’s “conservative case for QE2.”

The WSJ reports U.S. Rep. Mike Pence’s (IN) superb recent Detroit Economic Club speech calling for a supply-side reform agenda.

After criticizing the excessive money creation under Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Mr. Pence called for eliminating the Fed's dual mandate to pursue both price stability and full employment. He wants the Fed to focus exclusively on price stability and thinks the U.S. should consider returning to gold in setting the value of the dollar. President Reagan understood that inflation is the thief of the middle class and that investor confidence is destroyed when governments debase the value of their currencies. Mr. Pence apparently understands this, too.

A brief video clip is here.

In The Washington Times, Richard Rahn examines insider trading.

In City Journal, Nicole Gelinas advocates tax reform:

Moreover, cutting tax breaks would be in the best supply-side tradition. Supply-side economists, after all, have long counseled lower tax rates for a reason: they figured that regular people could spend and invest their money more wisely than the government could. But rate reductions can’t work if the government continues to run people’s lives through the rest of the tax code.

Right now, we may have supply-side tax rates, but thanks to tax breaks, we’ve got a thoroughly demand-side tax code. That’s a toxic combination, considering that we need healthy economic growth to help us confront our national debt. The economy can’t grow optimally if Washington encourages Americans to pour more borrowed money into their houses at the expense of more productive investments. Nor can the economy fight its way out of stagnation if state and local governments keep pushing up their own taxes, with an assist from Capitol Hill and the White House.

At Lew Rockwell, Gary North obsesses over deficits and omits economic growth from his critique of the Laffer Curve.