I was reading Wikipedia’s entry about the Bush Tax Cuts when I noticed a familiar name:

The tax cuts have been largely opposed by American economists, including the Bush administration’s own Economic Advisement Council. In 2003, 450 economists, including ten Nobel Prize laureate, signed the Economists’ statement opposing the Bush tax cuts, sent to President Bush stating that “these tax cuts will worsen the long-term budget outlook… will reduce the capacity of the government to finance Social Security and Medicare benefits as well as investments in schools, health, infrastructure, and basic research… [and] generate further inequalities in after-tax income.” The Bush administration has claimed, based on the concept of the Laffer Curve, that the tax cuts actually paid for the themselves by generating enough extra revenue from additional economic growth to offset the lower taxation rates. However, income tax revenues in dollar terms did not regain their FY 2000 peak until 2006. Through the end of 2008, total federal tax revenues relative to GDP have yet to regain their 2000 peak. In contrast to the claims made by Bush, Cheney, and Republican presidential primary candidates such as Rudy Giuliani, there is a broad consensus among even conservative economists (including current and former top economists of the Bush Administration such as Greg Mankiw) that the tax cuts have had a substantial net negative impact on revenues (i.e., revenues would have been substantially higher if the tax cuts had not taken place), even taking into account any stimulative effect the tax cuts may have had and any resulting revenue feedback effects. When asked whether the Bush tax cuts had generated more revenue, Laffer stated that he did not know. However, he did say that the tax cuts were “what was right,” because after the September 11 attacks and threats of recession, Bush “needed to stimulate the economy and spend for defense.”

…..

While the vast majority of economists believe that inequality has increased sharply since the late 1970s and during the tenure of George W. Bush, conservative and libertarian economists have attempted to refute claims of increasing inequality by pointing to flaws in the data gather of Thomas and Piketty. Economist Stephen Rose asserts that Piketty and Saez use an older method to adjusting for inflation, exclude government transfers, and they do not address demographic changes. Rose does, however, conclude that while inequality did increase, the increase has been exaggerated. Libertarian economist Alan Reynolds, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, makes similar assertions as Rose Gary Burtless, senior fellow at the centrist Brookings Institution, however, stated that Reynolds did not provide sufficient evidence to dismiss the findings of Saez, which are further supported by the CBO. According to him, “many of [Reynold’s] criticisms are misguided or unfair given the goals of the Pikkety-Saez project… The CBO handles almost all the problems Reynolds mentions, and its calculations show a sizeable rise in both pre-tax and after-tax inequality since the late 1980s.” Overall the vast majority of economists disagree with Reynolds, believing that income inequality has grown and government redistribution is required to lessen the current extent of inequality, which they view as excessive.

After a really long list of economists, including Bush’s own budget office, rail on the tax cuts, the article lists only two or so economists defending them, and one of them is Alan Reynolds, the same guy who thought Al Gore’s crazy “more evaporation means more rain” theory had been scientifically disproved because all the earth’s rain clouds had magically floated from the troposphere to the stratosphere.

I see this kind of thing all the time: people who claim to be experts in multiple fields while being competent in none of them. It’s not like you hear about climate scientists giving their advice on finance or anthropologists trying to explain how evolution fits into theology. But the same guys who used to sell bullshit science about cigarettes being good for you are the same guys selling bullshit science about the desertification of the planet being good for you.

Who cares where the information comes from as long as it confirms what the radio and teevee dogs are barking about? And if Rush and Hannity say Climate Change is fake, then there’s nothing left but to start teaching it in schools….

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527514.100-battle-over-climate-science-spreads-to-us-schoolrooms.html

As an aside, there’s a noticeable difference between the Reagan tax cuts and Bush tax cuts. When Reagan realized his tax cuts had gone too far, he raised taxes. When Bush realized his tax cuts had gone too far, he cut them again and made them even more disproportional.