The Success Of The Swedish Tax Cut Policies

Interesting article in The Spectator on how the Swedish tax cut policies was both an economic and political success.

While the entry of the "far right" Sweden Democrats into parliament will end the parliamentary majority of the centre-right government this reflects the fact that the Sweden Democrats rose above the 4% threshold. The increase in their support reflected mainly a big drop in support for the opposition Social Democrats who dropped from 35% to 30.7%. By contrast the centre-right parties actually increased their share of the vote from 48.2% to 49.3%. That is a big accomplishment since Swedish governments during the last four decades have always lost support.

Meanwhile, the tax cuts as well as the cuts in unemployment and sick leave benefits have made Sweden one of the few countries with a higher level of employment than 4 years ago. The article mentions that the tax cuts could have created 100,000 jobs (2.2% of employment, the equivalent of 3 million in America), an estimate I think could be on the low side. And if you add the effects of reduced benefits, we could easily be talking about 200,000 jobs.