Elizabeth Popp Berman (SUNY-Albany, Department of Sociology) presents Economic Ideas and the Political Process: Debating Tax Cuts in the U.S. House of Representatives, 1962-1981 at Indiana-Bloomington today as part of its Tax Policy Colloquium Series organized by Ajay K. Mehrotra.  Here is the abstract:

While sociologists and political scientists have become interested in the role of ideas in the political process, relatively little work looks at how ideological claims are actually deployed in political discourse. This paper examines the economic claims made in two pairs of Congressional debates over tax cuts, one (in 1962 and 1964) generally associated with Keynesian economic theories, and one (in 1978 and 1981) tied to supply-side ideas. While these bills were indeed initiated by groups subscribing to different economic ideologies, subsequent debates look surprisingly similar. The bills were closer in substance than one might expect, and while their proponents came from opposite political camps, in both cases supporters focused more on supply-side than demand-side effects and emphasized tax cuts’ ability to pay for themselves through economic stimulation. We propose that politically acceptable economic claims may evolve more slowly than the economic theories that inspire policy entrepreneurs, and that this “discursive opportunity structure” may not only constrain the political process but may potentially shape the political effects of expert knowledge.