If the editorial writers at the New York Times have heard of the Laffer Curve, then it's obvious they want to forget it.

In a typically lame editorial today, the Times encourages Congress to let the Bush tax cuts expire in order to bring the economy to a screeching halt erase the budget deficit. Oh, and all those monies that have been coming in -- in record amounts, I might add -- are figments of your imagination, apparently.

Then, Mr. Bush greatly compounded his otherwise modest exaggeration by taking credit for the reduction, when the deficit really fell despite his policies, not because of them. The distinction is crucial, to understand both the current mess — in which debt is mounting just as huge obligations are coming due for Medicare and Social Security — and how best to get out of it.

The drop in the deficit over the past few years was due largely to the cyclical recovery from the earlier recession, and to a boost in revenue when temporary business tax cuts expired after 2004.

So, Bush's tax policies are to blame, huh? So, the Times -- defenders of the poor -- are suggesting that the millions of "lucky duckies" (aka working poor) who have been dropped from the tax rolls all together be forced to start paying what they were during the Clinton administration. Furthermore, that the tax system be made less progressive than it is today -- after all, before the Bush tax cuts more of the tax burden rested on middle and upper-middle classes than it does today. Today, the rich pay a larger share of the taxes collected than they did under the previous administration.

All of these facts are irrelevant when you're on an ideological and partisan crusade.