Menzie Chinn Is an Unhappy Camper

He writes:

Econbrowser: Dick Cheney on economics : The vice president holds forth on the elasticity of tax receipts with respect to the tax rate.... "Nobody's perfect, but when revenue projections are off by 180 degrees, it's time to reexamine our assumptions and to consider using more dynamic analysis to measure the true impact of tax cuts on the American economy," he said.... This view is, apparently, the motivation for the President's proposal for a new unit in the Treasury Department to implement dynamic scoring. From the Washington Post:

Treasury officials said yesterday that the president's proposed Division on Dynamic Analysis -- with a handful of employees and a $513,000 budget -- would go beyond the government's old "static" methods of analyzing proposed changes in tax policy only in terms of their direct effects on certain affected taxpayers. Instead, "dynamic" analysis looks at how tax changes cause consumers and businesses to behave differently in ways that affect the overall economy's growth.

Dynamic scoring... in proper hands, and with proper deference to our uncertainty... in the hands of a professional staff... well insulated from political pressures, would be a good thing. However, WMDs, "last throes of the insurgency", and the "Clear Skies" initiative, might give an impartial observer pause for thought.

Impeach George W. Bush. Impeach Richard Cheney. Do it now.