[Hoot Gibson]

Isn't politicians listening to these quote, unquote reputable economists the reason why we are in this mess right now.

Who determines which one is reputable when one says the exact opposite of the other? Yet both are reputable ?

It's kinda the same thing as reading the cliché "while scientists once thought" statement. Subtle way of saying they didn't know what they were talking about in the first place.

All of the "reputable pollsters" said, Hillary in a landslide, too.

One of those economists, Gary Cohn, was the chief architect of Trump's tax reform program, which resulted in several large companies immediately announcing that they would be bringing billions of dollars back from overseas to reinvest here. He is leaving the adminstration because he vehemently opposes Trump's decision on tariffs. Three of Trump's own top economic advisers from his campaign co-authored the article that I posted in the OP.

Milton Friedman, Reagan's top economic adviser, was strongly opposed to tariffs. Reagan closely followed his advice and did a pretty good job of pulling the country's economy out of the ditch into which Carter, Ford, Nixon, and Johnson had driven it.

Herbert Hoover tried imposing high tariffs, despite his personal opposition to the, when he signed the Smoot-Hawley tariffs into law. The result helped get FDR into the Oval Office.

Not everybody who disagrees with some of Trump's policies is necessarily wrong. Trump is a successful businesssman, but he has gone bankrupt more than once. More successful businesssman than him - not all - disagree with him on tariffs.