Ina recent post on economists opposing Bush’s tax cuts, I predicted that few free-market economists would line up to support Bush’s budget. As “Anonymous Coward”* points out, I was way off the mark. The US Treasury has just released a statement by 250 supporters, including big names like Feldstein, Boskin, Mankiw and Meltzer. Since Feldstein has in the past been a big supporter of the ‘crowding out’ hypothesis, I’ll be interested to see if he puts forward a supporting analysis.

* This is the default identity from Slashdot and elsewhere, which has been popping up a bit in my comments thread. I’m going to treat AC as one person for the moment, but who knows. It could be yet another manifestation of the many-avatared Imre-Gudgeon-Bunyip-Parish complex, in which some commentators have sought to implicate me as well.

Update I wasn’t 100 per cent wrong. As the NYT points out, there are currently 5 Nobel winners at Chicago, none of whom signed either ad.