Saturday, October 16, 2004
368 Economists Agree....
Leading economists have a message for America: “John Kerry favors economic policies that, if implemented, would lead to bigger and more intrusive government and a lower standard of living for the American people.”
That was the conclusion released in a statement Wednesday by 368 economists, including six Nobel laureates: Gary Becker, James Buchanan, Milton Friedman, Robert Lucas, Robert Mundell, and — the winner of this year’s Nobel Prize in Economics — Edward C. Prescott. The economists warned that Sen. Kerry’s policies “would, over time, inhibit capital formation, depress productivity growth, and make the United States less competitive internationally. The end result would be lower U.S. employment and real wage growth.”Consider Kerry’s spending and tax proposals. Kerry claims he wants to balance the federal budget, but as the Washington Post pointed out last August, “Sen. John F. Kerry’s pledge to reduce record federal budget deficits is colliding with an obstacle that may be growing higher by the week: his own campaign commitments.” In fact, Kerry’s spending proposals would add an estimated $226 billion annually to federal spending. To put this in perspective, $226 billion is roughly equal to the gross domestic products of Greece or Sweden.
# posted by Knitting a Conundrum @ 8:40 AM 
