An Empirical Question

Today I watched a “talking head” show and conservative commentator George Will referred to the employment surge that followed Regan’s tax cut in 1983. Paul Krugman then said that the surge never happened other than a slight bump from direct spending that acted as a stimulus. It was a matter of fact, not opinion, about which they disagreed. It has always seemed to me that is an empirical question. Do tax cuts create such a surge in employment such that tax cuts are an effective way to spend government money to create jobs, or is it an ineffective and inefficient way to create jobs? That is a factual question. The problem is that many variables are involved and the implications loom so large that agreement is nearly impossible to find. Yet we desperately need to know the truth and the losing side just needs to swallow hard and suck it up. I suspect that carefully targeted tax cuts could help raise employment. But the question is: by how much. Could that money be best spent on tax cuts or on something else? We need the questioned investigated by someone who would be willing to let the chips fall how they may and let the truth come out. Why is this so hard?