Supply-side Follies: Why Conservative Economics Fails, Liberal Economics Falters, And Innovation Economics is The Answer

Supply-Side Follies is a progressive political and economic challenge to the current George W. Bush policies. It debunks commonly held assumptions of conservative economic policies centered on the obsession that tax cuts led to greater productivity and prosperity. These fundamentally flawed policies are setting the United States up for a major economic downturn in the near future. The 21st century knowledge economy requires a fundamentally different approach to boosting growth than simply cutting taxes on the richest investors. The alternative is not, however, to resurrect old Keynesian, populist economics as too many Democrats hope to do. Rather, as Rob Atkinson makes clear, our long-term national welfare and prosperity depends on new economic strategy that fits the realities of the 21st century global, knowledge-based economy: innovation-based growth economics.

Robert D. Atkinson, Ph.D., is president of The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit think tank with a pro-innovation, pro-productivity, and digital economy public policy agenda. He was formerly vice president of the Progressive Policy Institute and project director at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. Government Technology magazine and the Center for Digital Government named him one of the 25 top ’Doers, Dreamers and Drivers of Information Technology’ and Inc. Magazine listed Atkinson as one of ’19 friends’ of small business in Washington.