Bruce Bartlett is a columnist for The Fiscal Times, an online newspaper covering public and personal finance, and Tax Notes, a weekly magazine for tax practitioners and policymakers. He also contributes a weekly post to the Economix blog at the New York Times. Bartlett was previously a columnist for Forbes magazine and Creators Syndicate. His writing often focuses on the intersection between politics and economics and attempts to inform politicians about economics, and economists about the current nature of politics. He also blogs at http://capitalgainsandgames.com.

Bartlett, an architect of Reaganomics and recently featured on many talk shows, is an outspoken and provocative critic of Tea Party economics. The columnist recently wrote in The Fiscal Times, “Given our budgetary situation, it is irresponsible to keep higher revenues completely off the table, as Republicans insist. And their dogmatic belief that low taxes on the rich are the key to growth is transparent nonsense.” That nonsense aside, he adds that “it’s reasonable for the modestly well to do to fear being treated like millionaires when there is talk of raising taxes on the rich. Higher tax rates on the rich should apply only to those who really are rich.”

Bartlett’s work is informed by many years in government, including service on the staffs of Congressmen Ron Paul and Jack Kemp and Senator Roger Jepsen, as executive director of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress, senior policy analyst in the Reagan White House, and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy at the Treasury Department during the George H.W. Bush administration.

Bruce is the author of seven books including the New York Times best-seller, Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy (Doubleday, 2006). His latest book is The New American Economy: The Failure of Reaganomics and a New Way Forward (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). His next book, The Benefit and the Burden, will be published by Simon and Schuster in 2012 and is a history and review of issues related to tax reform.