Serious economists should not indulge in fact-free grandstanding

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The following letter is in the FT this morning:

Sir, Serious economists should not indulge in fact-free grandstanding.

There is no hard evidence to support the view that a temporary increase in the marginal tax rate from 40 per cent to 50 per cent on incomes above £150,000 would harm effort, entrepreneurship and growth, or that it would not raise tax revenue.

And even hard-nosed economists should have some regard for the damage to national solidarity that a reversal of the tax change is likely to cause in the current climate of austerity.

Vijay Joshi, Fellow, St John's College, Oxford, UK

Quite so.
And enough said.
Except to ask - why did they choose to issue this letter on the day the NHS was being destroyed in the House of Commons? Were these economists also participants in a deliberate government propaganda act on top of their professional neglect of evidence, noted above?
Hat tip: Barbara Panvel

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