Posted by
Stefano on Tuesday, February 03, 2009 12:32:35 AM
John Boener provided a list of statements sent to him from economists across the nation. For example:
"Government spending does not create incentives for labor, innovation and investment. Instead of spending $1 trillion in Washington, let Washington forgive $1 trillion in tax revenues to create incentives for millions of individuals and firms to get the economy going again, one dollar at a time."
- Donald Luskin - Chief Investment Officer, Trend Macrolytics LLC
"It is time for voters to wake up to the fact that government cannot create jobs. It can only shift jobs from one part of the economy to the other. It is entrepreneurs who create jobs, and it is consumers who judge whether those jobs are the best jobs to be created. The government contributes best by establishing a rule of law and protection of property rights that allows entrepreneurs and consumers to act in their best interests."
- Antony Davies - Associate Professor of Economics, Duquesne University
"The empirical evidence overwhelmingly rejects federal government deficit spending as the best method for stimulating the economy, and is generally unsupportive of it having any stimulus effect at all."
- Justin Ross - Assistant Professor of Economics, School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University
"Any so-called stimulus program is a ruse. The government can increase its spending only by reducing private spending equivalently. Whether government finances its added spending by increasing taxes, by borrowing, or by inflating the currency, the added spending will be offset by reduced private spending. Furthermore, private spending is generally more efficient than the government spending that would replace it because people act more carefully when they spend their own money than when they spend other people's money."
Richard Wagner - Professor of Economics, George Mason University
Here is the link to the complete list:
http://republicanleader.house.gov/UploadedFiles/stimulusskeptics.pdf