It doesn’t say higher taxes than there would have to be under Bush. It just says higher than what Kerry has proposed.
Last time that Sam told us that our unemployment rate was far ahead of most of the other industrialized nations, we found quite a long list of those nations (Denmark, Australia, Sweden, Ireland, and several more, if I recall correctly) that actually had lower rates.
You also have to recognize that the “unemployment rate” is not a standardized concept. I believe that many countries don’t elimininate from that number those who have become too disgruntled and are no longer looking for work, as we do here in the U.S.
Finally, in all of those countries, if you are out of work, you still have health care coverage and a decent safety net. And, they have higher minimum wages so that there aren’t as many people who are working but still living in poverty.
Here is a PDF file showing the standardized unemployment rates in the OECD countries. You can see, for example, that while the unemployment rate in the U.S. went up from 4.7% in 2001 to 5.4% in August of this year, it faired better in other countries: For example, in Canada it was constant (admittedly at a higher value of 7.2%). In Australia it dropped from 6.8% to 5.7%. In Japan, it dropped from 5.0% to 4.8%. In Korea, from 4.0% to 3.7%. In New Zealand from 5.3% to 4.0%. Admittedly, in many other OECD countries (most overall) it went up as it did in the U.S., but the claim that the U.S. somehow faired far better than the other developed countries is not supported by this data (nor that our rate is currently the lowest or even amongst the few lowest).
How many times do we have to try just throwing tax cuts at wealthy people in the hopes they will create jobs before we realize just how poorly that this works (or at least how inefficient it is in terms of bang-for-the-buck)? Kerry does propose some tax cuts to small businesses but those cuts are targetted to encourage this behavior.
I’ve got dibs on the next 3, but I’ll add to your’s first. 
The Heritage Foundation, for whom Douglas K. Adie is a “policy expert”, is a conservative think-tank funded by the group I like to affectionately call “Scaife and Friends” (“SaF”).
Richard J. Agnello receives grants from the Reason Foundation, which is oddly enough also funded by “SaF”.
Now for the next 3…
William Albrecht - Appointed by Reagan to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and was acting chairman for a short bit after Phil Gramm’s wife got caught up a bit in some dirty dealings which caused her to resign a bit quicker than expected. Served most of his term under George HW Bush.
Donald L. Alexander - Author for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, another conservative think-tank funded by “SaF.”
William R. Allen - The “Midnight Economist” whose radio program is syndicated by the Reason Foundation. Yes, the same one listed above as giving grants to Agnello, and funded by “SaF.”
So, when looking over the first 6, we have one “Public Choice” proponent, one Republican appointee who served most of his term under Bush’s daddy, and four lap dogs for “Scaife and Friends.” Hell, this stuff is too good to make up.
Oh…What the heck. I’ll take the next 3. Ryan Amacher has written books published by the American Enterprise Institute and the Independence Institute.
And Annelise Anderson and Martin Amderson are both at the Hoover Institution. Need I say more?
I guess they should have headlined the press release, “Many economists with impeccable conservative credentials don’t support Kerry!” Startling indeed!!
I guess President Kennedy was a total fuck-up then because that is exactly what he did. Best of luck getting a job from the companies who rely on the investment capital of poor people.
Wayne Angell is a long-time Republican Party man, having even served in the Kansas State House of Representatives.
Couldn’t find any specific evidence of political leanings at Jim Araji’s website but he is an agricultural economist who lists his four most recent publications as “Efficient Use of Animal Manure on Cropland-Economic Analysis”, “The Economic Impact of Investments in the Pacific Northwest Potato Variety Development Program” (published in the prestigious journal American Journal of Potato Reseach), ”The Economic and Environmental Impacts of Nematode Biocontrol Methods: An Ex-ante Approach,” and "The Economic Benefits of Genetically Modified Potatoes to Egypt and South Africa.” [Well, I guess the last one might betray a bit of a political bent.] Sounds like the sort of top-flight economist I would respect on issues of national economic policy, or at least national economic potato policy! 
And, Richard Armey is of course the former U.S. House Majority Leader.
That takes us through all of the A’s…Anyone want to start on the B’s?
Just for fun, I decided to see how far down the list I had to go to find an economist that wasn’t associated either with a Republican administration or “Scaife and Friends.”
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Ryan C. Amacher - Author for the Independent Institute. Yep, it’s another “SaF” entity.
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Annelise Anderson - “During 1980, she was a senior policy adviser to the presidential campaign of Ronald Reagan, and as Associate Director, Office of Presidential Personnel, worked on staffing the departments of Treasury, Transportation, and Commerce during the transition to the first Reagan administration.”
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Martin Anderson - "George W. Bush Presidential Campaign : Policy Adviser, 2000 "
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Wayne Angell - Appointed to the Fed by Reagan.
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Jim Araji - Hooray, finally someone that I can’t link to either Scaife or Reagan/Bush with fewer than 3 degrees of separation.
I was beginning to wonder if I’d have to research the entire list before striking out.
I realize that. My point was this: why is Kerry singled out as having to raise taxes far higher?
While it is possible that Kerry’s plans will require more money, it is guaranteed that Bush’s plans will require WAY more money.
I know what you are going to say: Kerry has claimed he would balance the budget, while Bush has never denied that he would continue to spend irresponsibly.
But that isn’t true. A quote from Bush’s website:
“The President’s budget calls for cutting the deficit in half over the next five years.”
Now, given this, would it not be accurate to say that “Bush’s plans to vastly increase federal spending, and to cut the deficit in half over the next five years, will certainly require far higher and broader tax increases than he has proposed”?
In fact, as we know, Bush’s plans cost much more, and his stated goal of cutting the deficit in half would require MUCH higher tax increases above his proposals than would Kerry’s plans.
Yet the letter mentions only that kerry will “almost” certainly (Read: NOT certainly) have to raise taxes if he hopes to reach his stated goals.
It fails to mention that Bush has absolutely no chance of coming anywhere near his stated goals.
Well, as I recall, marginal tax rates in those days went as high as 90%. I think a good argument could be made that a 90% tax rate could create a strong disincentive to earn more money.
And, when you are in a recession, the problem isn’t generally a lack of investment capital. The problem is that the capital that people have invested in is not being used to its full capacity because there isn’t sufficient demand for the products. You don’t solve that problem by throwing money at rich people…They aren’t going to invest just for the hell of it. They will invest only if they can make money by investing.
Besides which, there is not often a great shortage of money in the hands of rich people. When you give money to the poor, they go out and spend it and it soon enough ends up in the hands of the rich. (The richest 1% have about 40% of the wealth and I think the percentage of the financial wealth is above 50% if I remember correctly.) Percolate up economics definitely works…Trickle down economics, well, I suppose it works fine if all you want is a tiny trickle.
This seems particularly appropriate. I think the animal in question must be a bullock, no?
But how are you going to explain away the fact that four professors from Metropolitan State College of Denver are critical of Kerry’s plan?
Yeah, that’s ≈ what I was implying.
I’m not arguing against you personally SimonX.
I use the word “you” just because it makes it easier to write an argument.
A bad habit, that my english professor always tells me not to do. Along with using unnecessary commas.
Like DMC stated, this stuff is just too good to make up. And, I should emphasize that those 4 papers I listed weren’t “cherry-picked”; they were simply the complete list of recent publications from his website.
So, let us count the ways that we have shredded the OP’s thesis here:
(1) We have shown by taking a look at a subset that was not chosen by us…just the first 12 names on the list…that 10 or 11 of them had strong connections to conservative think-tanks, the Republican Party, or the like and that the one or two who didn’t weren’t particularly distinguished from what we could tell (unless you are really big on potato economics). Thus, we arrive at the “startling” conclusion that economists with very strong conservative leanings don’t like Kerry that much.
(2) We have pointed out various problems regarding many of the claims in the letter that they signed, including the fact that some of the criticisms (e.g., the gap between spending and revenue) would seem to apply more strongly to Bush than to Kerry.
(3) We have pointed out that there are similar sign-on letters attacking Bush. One has apparently been signed by more Harvard Business School professors than I might have even guessed there were. (I guess that place is bigger than I thought.) Another, a letter regarding Bush’s abuse of science, has been signed onto by more than 5000 scientists including 48 Nobel Prize winners and 62 National Medal of Science Recipients.
Is there anything I have left out so far or is that a good summary?
Besides the fact that much of that rise in GDP occurred under Clinton, who is probably the closest model we have to go on in terms of Kerry’s policies, the problems with this idea that the per-capita GDP is a very good measure of standard of living in general has been best debunked recently by Paul Krugman:
I think that about covers it. Though we have also learned, I hope, that posting a list of 369 names is not really a very useful thing to do on a message board, once one has posted the link necessary to retrieve the list, for those who cared to examine it more closely.
Nothing to see here, folks. Move along, move along. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here…
And to think, I just tossed out the “conservative think-tank” quip as a shot in the dark.
But then, given Sam Stone’s posting record of late, betting that the OP was built on extremely partisan premises was easy money.
Actually, some of them are starting to not like Bush that much.
Last year’s letter (yes, there was a similar one last year by a lot of the same people) reads in its entirety:
Wow, I’m not sure if I can wade through all that deep technical material, but what are you going to do about those crazy economists and their attention to detail.
Anyway, if you peruse that list, you’ll find Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, which is of course another “SaF” organization. You’ll also see his name on Sam’s list, so he obviously backs Bush, right? Nope, apparently he’s not real fond of Bush’s policies either, even though he’s working for the dark side. From the Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2004 Boston Globe and Mail:
Startling indeed.