The Economists' statement opposing the Bush tax cuts was a statement signed by roughly 450 economists, including ten of the twenty-four American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 Nobel Prize

Nobel Prize

The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...

 laureates alive at the time, in February 2003 who urged the U.S. President

President of the United States

The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

 George W. Bush

George W. Bush

George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

 not to enact the 2003 tax cuts

Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003

The Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 , was passed by the United States Congress on May 23, 2003 and signed into law by President George W. Bush on May 28, 2003...

; seeking and sought to gather public support for the position. The statement was printed as a full-page ad in The New York Times

The New York Times

The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

and released to the public through the Economic Policy Institute

Economic Policy Institute

The Economic Policy Institute is a 501 non-profit, liberal, nonpartisan think tank that seeks to broaden the public debate about strategies to achieve a prosperous and fair economy...

. According to the statement, the 450 plus economists who signed the statement believe that the 2003 Bush tax cuts will increase inequality and the budget deficit, decreasing the ability of the U.S. government to fund essential services, while failing to produce economic growth.

In rebuttal, 250 plus economists who supported the tax plan wrote that the new plan would "create more employment, economic growth, and opportunities for all Americans."

Content

The statement reads as follows:

Economic growth, though positive, has not been sufficient to generate jobs and prevent unemployment from rising. In fact,
there are now more than two million fewer private sector jobs than at the start of the current recession. Overcapacity,
corporate scandals, and uncertainty have and will continue to weigh down the economy.

The tax cut plan proposed by President Bush is not the answer to these problems. Regardless of how one views the specifics
of the Bush plan, there is wide agreement that its purpose is a permanent change in the tax structure and not the creation
of jobs and growth in the near-term. The permanent dividend tax cut, in particular, is not credible as a short-term stimulus.
As tax reform, the dividend tax cut is misdirected in that it targets individuals rather than corporations, is overly
complex, and could be, but is not, part of a revenue-neutral tax reform effort.

Passing these tax cuts will worsen the long-term budget outlook, adding to the nation’s projected chronic deficits. This
fiscal deterioration will reduce the capacity of the government to finance Social Security and Medicare benefits as well as
investments in schools, health, infrastructure, and basic research. Moreover, the proposed tax cuts will generate further
inequalities in after-tax income.

To be effective, a stimulus plan should rely on immediate but temporary spending and tax measures to expand demand,
and it should also rely on immediate but temporary incentives for investment. Such a stimulus plan would spur growth
and jobs in the short term without exacerbating the long-term budget outlook.

Signatories

Over 450 economists signed the statement, including the following ten Nobel Prize Laureates:

• George Akerlof
  George Akerlof
  George Arthur Akerlof is an American economist and Koshland Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. He won the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics George Arthur Akerlof (born June 17, 1940) is an American economist and Koshland Professor of Economics at the University of...
  
  , University of California – Berkeley
• Kenneth J. Arrow, Stanford University
• Lawrence R. Klein University of Pennsylvania
• Daniel L. McFadden University of California – Berkeley
• Franco Modigliani
  Franco Modigliani
  Franco Modigliani was an Italian economist at the MIT Sloan School of Management and MIT Department of Economics, and winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 1985.-Life and career:...
  
   Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Douglass C. North Washington University
• Paul A. Samuelson Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• William F. Sharpe Stanford University
• Robert M. Solow Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Joseph Stiglitz Columbia University

Response

The letter provoked a response from 250 signatories who supported the Bush tax cuts. Signatories of the rebuttal letter (none listed below were Nobel Prize winners) included:

• Annelise Anderson Stanford University
• James T. Bennett George Mason University
• Martin Feldstein
  Martin Feldstein
  Martin Stuart "Marty" Feldstein is an economist. He is currently the George F. Baker Professor of Economics at Harvard University, and the president emeritus of the National Bureau of Economic Research . He served as President and Chief Executive Officer of the NBER from 1978 through 2008...
  
   Harvard University
• Joel W. Hay University of Southern California
• Robert J. Hodrick
  Robert J. Hodrick
  Robert James Hodrick , is a U.S. economistspecialized in International Finance. AB, Princeton, 1972; PhD, University of Chicago, 1976....
  
   Columbia University
• Michael C. Jensen Harvard Business School
• Burton Malkiel
  Burton Malkiel
  Burton Gordon Malkiel is an American economist and writer, most famous for his classic finance book A Random Walk Down Wall Street...
  
   Princeton University
• Gregory Mankiw Harvard University
• Carmen M. Reinhart International Monetary Fund
• Richard E. Wagner
  Richard E. Wagner
  Richard E. Wagner is a professor of economics at George Mason University. He works primarily in the fields of public finance and public choice....
  
   George Mason University
• Steven N. Kaplan University of Chicago