General Discussion

Bucky

(54,005 posts) Sat Mar 24, 2012, 01:02 PM Mar 2012

HIlarious! Romney's economic advisers refuse to back his gas price claims

The "say anything" candidate at least has the intelligence to hire economic advisers with the honesty (or the career protection sense) to not lie as bad as their boss.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/23/romney-economists-wont-support-romney-gas-prices_n_1375457.html

[font size="4"]Mitt Romney Gas Prices Rhetoric Doesn't Get Support Of His Own Economists[/font]

WASHINGTON -- Mitt Romney on the campaign trail has chided President Barack Obama for failing to curb prices at the pump, even as prominent economists have debunked those talking points, saying there's little the president can do to lower prices in the short term. Now the latest twist: No one from Romney's economic team will step forward to defend him.

After Romney insisted that more drilling in Mexico and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge could bring down the cost of gas, The Huffington Post contacted members of Romney's economic team -- two revolving-door lobbyists and two former chairmen of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush -- to ask if they would vouch for the claim.

"I will pass. Sorry," prominent macroeconomist Gregory Mankiw, a Romney advisor, replied when contacted by HuffPost about an interview. Other queries were similarly denied or unreturned.

Other economists haven't been shy about debunking the claim, explaining that U.S. energy policy has very little effect either on oil prices or on overall U.S. employment. Recent studies have backed them up. The Associated Press' statistical analysis of 36 years of monthly, inflation-adjusted gasoline prices and U.S. domestic oil production found no statistical correlation between gas prices and how much oil comes out of U.S. wells.