Even Keynes Isn't Keynesian

clipped from gregmankiw.blogspot.com As I previously noted, the older (and presumably wiser) John Maynard Keynes was skeptical of using infrastructure projects as a countercyclical tool. NYU economist Mario Rizzo now brings to my attention that the mature Mr Keynes also favored the payroll tax as a countercyclical policy instrument: In correspondence with the economist James Meade in 1942 Keynes says he is “converted” to Meade’s idea of altering the social security payroll tax over the business cycle. Here are Keynes’s words: I am converted to your proposal…for varying rates of contributions in good and bad times. (June 16, 1942). Keynes, Collected Writings, vol. 27, p. 208.