Tax and Spend

I'm back again after (another) long-ish absence. Here's a comment from one Robert Waldmann on the excellent Economist's View which caught my eye:

George Bush said

"No nation has ever taxed and spent its way to prosperity."

He is, of course, totally wrong. No country which is not sitting on oil or made of guano has ever achieved prosperity without taxing and spending the money on public education. It's not like the pure private sector approach to schooling has never been tried -- it was tried and failed for millennia. So far in history the rule is no tax and spend no industrialization.

Tax and spend is so under-rated...