So-called US ‘progressive’ economists arena flap at the moment after Gerald Friedman, an academic economist at UMass released a report on January 28, 2016 – What would Sanders do? Estimating the economic impact of Sanders programs – which suggested that the US economy could perform significantly better and deliver substantially improved outcomes for those disadvantaged citizens with Bernie Sanders in the White House. When I say progressive, I mean those who would consider themselves Democrat Party insiders (former Chairs of the US Council of Economic Advisers under previous Democratic administrations). Last week (February 17, 2016), they created a special Internet site to publish – An Open Letter from Past CEA Chairs to Senator Sanders and Professor Gerald Friedman – which claimed that “no credible economic research supports economic impacts” proposed by Friedman and that “Making such promises runs against our party’s best traditions of evidence-based policy making and undermines our reputation as the party of responsible arithmetic”. As if the policy-making and arithmetic of these attention-seeking (neo-liberal) Democrat insiders is anything to be guided by.Bill weighs in.
Bill Mitchell – billy blog
Democrats in glass houses – you know the rest!
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia
Bill said "What worried me most was the projected spending of $US14,500 over 10 years will be more than offset by revenue of $US15,828, which means the fiscal position at the end of that period will have been contractionary."
ReplyDeleteRight. Good on Bill for calling bullshit on Bernie-nomics.
Meanwhile, other "progressive" economists are "evaluating the evaluators."