Among the myriad Republican myths about taxes, the most pernicious and demonstrably false - that "tax cuts pay for themselves" - is the mostly deeply held by the GOP faithful. As President George W. Bush famously (and erroneously) put it, "You cut taxes and the tax revenues increase." Now, a survey of leading economists conducted by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business is just the latest shovelful of evidence to bury Arthur Laffer's zombie lie.

Earlier this year, as Congressional Republicans learned the hard way three weeks ago from CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf, another Chicago Booth poll revealed that "80 percent of economic experts agreed that, because of the stimulus, the U.S. unemployment rate was lower at the end of 2010 than it would have been otherwise." (As Elmendorf told the House Budget Committee, ""Only 4 percent disagreed or strongly disagreed. That is a distinct minority.")

Now, the U of C is back with a new two-part survey on the Laffer Curve. In the first question, 35 percent agreed and another 35 percent were unsure that "a cut in federal income tax rates in the US right now would lead to higher GDP within five years than without the tax cut." (That response is unsurprising, given that one definition states that GDP equals consumption plus investment plus government plus net exports minus taxes.) But far more interesting are the results on the question that gets to the heart of Arthur Laffer's supply-side snake oil which has been Republican orthodoxy ever since Jude Wanniski sketched Laffer's curve on a cocktail napkin. In a nutshell, not a single one of the economists surveyed agreed that "a cut in federal income tax rates in the US right now would raise taxable income enough so that the annual total tax revenue would be higher within five years than without the tax cut."

In his comments, David Autor of MIT pointed out, "Not aware of any evidence in recent history where tax cuts actually raise revenue. Sorry, Laffer." Former Obama administration economist and current University of Chicago professor Austan Goolsbee put it this way:

Moon landing was real. Evolution exists. Tax cuts lose revenue. The research has shown this a thousand times. Enough already.

Of course, you don't have to take Goolsbee's word for it. Your own eyes will suffice.

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"I feel stupid," someone said the other day. "I consider myself well-informed, but I have no idea what the term 'austerity economics' really means."

Actually it's not that complicated, and most of the lesson plan can be found in today's headlines.

We'll explain austerity to you in six steps, and we promise it it won't take more than 900 words. Since adults read an average of 250-300 words per minute - and we know all of you are above average - our little course shouldn't take more than three minutes.

It's certainly worth knowing. Despite its many failures, "austerity economics" keeps remaking - and unmaking - the global economy. The only disagreement at this weekend's Republican debate was over which candidate would push austerity more aggressively. And austerity dominated the political agenda last year - "Deficit Commission," anyone? - until Occupy came along.

Merriam-Webster named "austerity" the "Word of the Year" for 2010. But like the monster from a 1950's science-fiction movie, it just keeps on growing. This week alone the name was invoked in government houses from Athens to Lagos.

What is this creature called "austerity," and why does it still hold so much power? If you've got three minutes, let's get started.

1. What is it?

The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English defines "austerity" as "when a government has a deliberate policy of trying to reduce the amount of money it spends."

Wikipedia calls it "a policy of deficit-cutting, lower spending, and a reduction in the amount of benefits and public services provided," adding that it's "sometimes coupled with increases in taxes to pay back creditors to reduce debt."

Got that? Austerity backers want government to spend less on benefits and public services, and to pay back its creditors more quickly. Higher taxes aren't part of the plan and they're strictly optional.

2. What's austerity supposed to accomplish?

Austerity advocates don't just see lower deficits and reduced debt as tools to promote long-term economic health. They consider them ends in themselves - sometimes even as moral values.

Many austerity advocates see government spending as inherently evil. That goes for all government spending, including police, teachers, nurses, and firefighters.

Sure, some of them will admit there can be necessary evils or useful evils - usually weapons procurement or law enforcement. But spending is always evil.

Other people aren't philosophically opposed to government spending, but have been convinced that it has become unaffordable today.

3. What's the theory behind austerity economics?

To answer that, it's important to understand that the economics profession has been systematically taken over by well-funded conservative academics. They've created elaborate theoretical constructs to prove that government spending is economically destructive.

These include theories like 'Barro-Ricardo equivalence,' which says people won't spend money when they know their government's incurring debts they'll have to pay someday. Conservative economists like Robert Barro insist this is true even in times of widespread unemployement, like now, and argue against stimulus spending to create jobs.

Oddly, they find this theory more compelling than the idea that people aren't spending money because they don't have jobs.

Then there's supply-side economics, which argues that the best way to grow the economy is by cutting taxes. That means smaller government. Supply-siders also rely on the "Laffer curve," which says people will stop investing, producing, and creating jobs if taxes are too high.

Austerity advocates also argue that international markets will lose confidence in governments if they don't curb spending and will charge them higher interest. So they even push cuts in Social Security, which doesn't even add to the deficit, because macroeconomists consider it 'government spending.'

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As Ronald Reagan's budget chief almost thirty years ago, a frustrated David Stockman famously lamented that when it comes to spending discipline, "there are no real conservatives in Congress." Now, three decades after he concluded "the supply-siders have gone too far," Stockman called the Republican demand for another $700 billion tax cut windfall for the wealthy, "unconscionable." As well he should. With the new GOP majority's financial toxic brew of gargantuan tax giveaways and still unnamed spending cuts, the Free Lunch Party has returned.

In truth, it never really left. As Stockman experienced first-hand, the national debt tripled under Ronald Reagan. The Gipper's M.C. Escher-like pledge to slash taxes, raise defense spending and balance the budget produced a torrent of red in that exceeded that of the previous 200 plus years of American history combined.

But conservative propagandists soon forgot Stockman's "magic asterisk" and Reagan's subsequent tax increases, neither of which could stop the record budget deficits he produced. After the Clinton balanced budget hiatus in the 1990's, George W. Bush doubled the national debt yet again. As explained in "The Bush Tax Cuts in Pictures," President Bush's Free Lunch dream predictably turned into a budgetary nightmare:

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities demolished the mythology promoted by President Bush ("You cut taxes and the tax revenues increase") and the usual suspects on the right. CBPP found that Bush tax cuts accounted for almost half of the mushrooming deficits during his tenure.

And as another recent CBPP analysis revealed, over the next 10 years, the Bush tax cuts if made permanent will contribute more to the U.S. budget deficit than the Obama stimulus, the TARP program, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and revenue lost to the recession put together.

(Worse still, the Bush tax cuts also coincided with an increase in poverty and a decline in Americans' average household income.)

And now, at a time of record budget deficits and record income inequality, Speaker Boehner and Minority Leader McConnell want to make the expiring Bush tax cuts permanent. The leading lights of the GOP still insist that draining $4 trillion from the U.S. Treasury over the next 10 years (including that $700 billion payday for the richest 2%) doesn't cost a cent.

For his part, this summer John Boehner wrongly claimed, "It's not the marginal tax rates ... that's not what led to the budget deficit." In July, Jon Kyl (R-AZ) the second ranking Senate Republican made the same point another way, telling Chris Wallace of Fox News, "You should never have to offset cost of a deliberate decision to reduce tax rates on Americans." Aborted Obama Commerce nominee Judd Gregg (R-NH) soon chimed in, declaring "I tend to think that tax cuts should not have to be offset." For his part, Oklahoma's Tom Coburn argued his math will work in the future if you ignore the past, "Continuing the [Bush] tax cuts isn't a cost, if you added new taxes, new tax cuts, I would agree that's a cost." Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell explained how tax cuts magically turn red ink black:

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