Let's pick on Greg Mankiw

By The Economist | WASHINGTON

GREG MANKIW's conservative credentials are not, I think, in doubt. Neither, we can be certain, are his economic credentials. And as a conservative economist he has been one of the more prominent critics of the Obama administration's economy policy. He argued against a large fiscal stimulus package focused on spending, and he linked to just about any piece of commentary he could get his hands on questioning whether spending multipliers were larger than tax multipliers (have a look at his archives for the month of February if you doubt this). When he hasn't been criticising the president's fiscal policy, he has taken on the president's moves to empower unions or the stimulus' protectionist provisions.

I happen to disagree with Mr Mankiw's assessment of fiscal stimulus, and while I agree with his take on unions and protectionist measures in the stimulus, the probable impact of those measures on the economy will almost certainly be miniscule (take leakage into account and the stimulus is clearly a net positive for foreign economies). But I don't doubt Mr Mankiw's motives; I think he sincerely believes that the policies he argues against will be bad for the economy.

With all that as a preamble, I'd like to ask Mr Mankiw a question. Senate minority leader John Boehner specifically, and Congressional Republicans generally, have been advocating for a strongly contractionary limit on federal spending. Mr Boehner has been saying that the government needs to lead by example and tighten its belt, and he has called for a spending freeze. I can't be sure, but I think most economists would agree that a spending freeze, at this point in the business cycle, would be far more damaging to the American economy than the recently passed stimulus. Moreover, I think they would agree that a spending freeze at this point in the business cycle would be far more damaging to the American economy than any policy signed, proposed, or considered by Barack Obama.

My question, then, is this—why, Mr Mankiw, are you devoting so much blog space to questions of fiscal multipliers, when as a respected conservative and economist you could perhaps encourage GOP legislators to adopt a slightly less lunatic position on economic policy?

And sincere apologies if I have missed Mr Mankiw making such a statement in the recent past. A search of his site for the word "Boehner" only turned up one result—a post concluding with an invitation to readers to learn more about, "a list of credentialed American economists who would like to add their voices to the list of stimulus spending skeptics", being compiled by Mr Boehner. You can see the full list of signatories here.