Should-Read: Jagdish Bhagwati: “I agree with the main thrust of the Letter I signed, but I do not think it is likely that tax cuts will produce revenues that offset the initial loss of revenue from the tax cuts…
Should-Read: More on Douglas Holtz-Eakin, James Miller, Jagdish Bhagwati, and a few more than 100 Unprofessional Republican Economists. I confess I am flummoxed by this: Statement by Jagdish Bhagwati: “I agree with the main thrust of the Letter I signed, but I do not think it is likely that tax cuts will produce revenues that offset the initial loss of revenue from the tax cuts…
…Incentives work but it is dangerous to assume that the results are huge. The mistake on the part of the supply-siders way back was that they did assume that the incentives result in implausibly huge responses. To assume this is to ‘bet the company’.”
Jagdish: The A Few More than 100 Unprofessional Republican Economists letter that you signed makes only three quantitative claims. What is “the main thrust of the letter” that you agree with, if not these three claims?
- The tax “reform” bill “will ignite our economy with levels of growth not seen in generations…”
- It will “produce a GDP boost ‘by between 3 and 5 percent…'”
- “Sophisticated economic models show the macroeconomic feedback generated by the TCJA will… more than… compensate for the static revenue loss…”
I read letters I sign. I do not sign letters I disagree with. If I cannot at least say, of every paragraph, “that’s true—but I would phrase it differently”, I do not sign. It would never occur to me to sign on.
Please. Retract your signature.