THERE IS AN OLD POLITICAL SAYING: “It is better to be lucky than good.” This week, President Bush was both: He gave a well-received acceptance speech to the Republican convention, and now he gets a jobs report that suggests his economic recovery program is working.

In his speech last night, the president laid out his vision for America’s economic future. If re-elected, he will make permanent the tax cuts he introduced to fight the recession, and will reform the tax structure so as to lighten taxes on dividends and earnings. That means that taxes on consumption will have to go up. The word from insiders working on these reforms is that detailed plans for a shift to some form of consumption tax have already been drawn up.