With all due respect Mr. President, that is not true.
In response to President Barack Obama's statement on January 9th that "there is no disagreement that we need action by our government, a recovery plan that will help jumpstart the economy", The Cato Institute organized an ad in opposition which appeared in The New York Times. The statement was signed by hundreds of prominent scholars and notable economists, including several Nobel laureates. The ad statement reads as follows:
Notwithstanding reports that all economists are now Keynesians and that we all support a big increase in the burden of government, we the undersigned do not believe that more government spending is a way to improve economic performance. More government spending by Hoover and Roosevelt did not pull the United States economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s. More government spending did not solve Japan's "lost decade" in the 1990s. As such, it is a triumph of hope over experience to believe that more government spending will help the U.S. today. To improve the economy, policymakers should focus on reforms that remove impediments to work, saving, investment and production. Lower tax rates and a reduction in the burden of government are the best ways of using fiscal policy to boost growth.
To see The Cato Institute's full ad, please click here
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