Should-Read: One Hundred Unprofessional Republican Economists: Trump tax reform opinion

Should-Read: Well, we have 100 more unprofessional Republican economists today…

We saw 4.5% real GDP growth in the second half of the 1990s and 5% in the half-decades before and after the 1979-1982 Volcker Disinflation Recession. “Levels of growth not seen in generations” is a high bar indeed. Appealing to Kevin “Dow 36000″ Hassett rather than doing any modeling is perhaps the most unprofessional thing I have ever seen, save for insisting that sophisticated economic models show… macroeconomic feedback… more than enough to compensate for the static revenue loss” without, somehow, naming the models, plural—let alone grappling with the fact that of us who have tried hard to look for an elastic supply response of domestic savings to the after-tax rate of return have failed to find anything:

I am, I have to admit it, greatly embarrassed by these clowns.

Most of them know they are lying. And it is not as though many of them think that a devil’s bargain is worth making they will thereby gain high federal office and be able to rein in crazy nut jobs. A little affinity fraud. A lot of partisanship. Zero commitment to telling it like it is:

One Hundred Unprofessional Republican Economists: Trump tax reform opinion: Why Congress should pass: “The enactment of a comprehensive overhaul—complete with a lower corporate tax rate—will ignite our economy with levels of growth not seen in generations…

…A twenty percent statutory rate on a permanent basis would, per the Council of Economic Advisers, help produce a GDP boost ‘by between 3 and 5 percent’. As the debate delves into deficit implications, it is critical to consider that $1 trillion in new revenue for the federal government can be generated by four-tenths of a percentage in GDP growth. Sophisticated economic models show the macroeconomic feedback generated by the TCJA will exceed that amount—more than enough to compensate for the static revenue loss…. Your vote throughout the weeks ahead will therefore put more money in the pockets of more workers. Supporting the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will ensure that those workers—those beneficiaries—are American…

Sincerely, James C. Miller III, Douglas Holtz-Eakin… Barry W. Poulson… Charles W. Calomiris… Donald Luskin… [and 95 others]

November 29, 2017

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Brad DeLong
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