The committee should jettison the whole concept of “capacity to pay,” he argued. It was impossible to know what this number was. Too many imponderables entered into the calculation, involving such questions as: How much could taxes be raised without triggering mass protest? How tightly could imports be squeezed without precipitating a collapse in production? How far could wages be reduced without provoking labor unrest? No one could agree on the answers to such cosmic questions. What was needed was a completely new approach to the problem.
