[extropy-chat] POLITICS: 537 Economists Criticize Bush and Kerry

[Eliezer Yudkowsky]

Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote:
> Hal Finney wrote:
>>
>> How about this: from the first letter, "The data make clear that your
>> policy of slashing taxes - primarily for those at the upper reaches
>> of the income distribution - has not worked....  What is called for,
>> we believe, is a dramatic reorientation of fiscal policy, including
>> substantial reversals of your tax policy."
> 
> Right.  Concentration of wealth is bad.
> 
>> And from the second letter, "John Kerry has proposed tax increases that
>> threaten to sap the economy's vitality and reduce long-term growth.
>> Specifically, Kerry proposes to 'restore the top two [income]
>> tax rates to their levels under President Clinton'....  In fact, we
>> believe Kerry's proposals would, over time, inhibit capital formation,
>> depress productivity growth, and make the United States less competitive
>> internationally."
> 
> Right.  Higher taxes are bad.
> 
>> The first group recommends "substantial reversals" of Bush's tax policy.
>> But the second specifically criticizes Kerry's proposal to roll back
>> the tax situation to what it was before Bush took office.  That looks
>> pretty contradictory to me.
> 
> I admit that you have to look at this pretty closely, knowing in advance 
> what economists can be expected to agree upon, to see how both sets of 
> signatories managed to phrase their criticism without saying anything 
> that would depart from the standard model.

PS:  Remember, the proper role of an economist is just to predict what will 
happen.  Letting the deficit go up and up and up has negative consequences. 
  Anything you try to do to get the deficit under control will have 
consequences - for example, increasing capital gains taxes will, yes, 
inhibit capital formation.  But to say that *therefore* we should not 
increase these taxes, and instead cut existing government spending (with 
some different untasty consequence), is a political decision, not an 
economic prediction.  Of course economists may disagree about choices.  I 
ask you to show me where they disagree in their predictions.

-- 
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky                          http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence