An Open Letter to Paul Krugman

William Beach / April 18, 2011

Over the past two weeks, you have relentlessly engaged in dishonest, deceptive and factually incorrect critiques of Heritage’s recent analysis of the Ryan budget plan, and they need to be addressed. With all of the work good people of every political stripe need to be doing in Washington today, the last thing we all have time for is correcting your typically contrived commentary. But when The New York Times gives you such a platform to spread distortions, they necessitate a response.

You’ve laid out several claims about Heritage’s macroeconomic analysis which you’ve urged your readers to consider in rejecting our recent work on the House Budget Resolution, also known as Budget Chairman Paul Ryan’s budget plan.

First, you assert our work on the Ryan plan should not be believed because our macroeconomic forecasts of the 2001 tax relief legislation proved to be incorrect. Second, you claim we essentially made up our estimates of how the Ryan plan would affect economic performance by crafting our work to reach supply side conclusions. And third, you declare we are intellectually dishonest because we posted a set of results on the day that Ryan released his plan that drew immediate criticism, withdrew those results, and posted a second set of results that same day.

Each one of these claims is false, as you most likely recognize. (more…)