Bushera tax cuts did help the economy , and had nothing to do with causing the recession . GlassSteagel would not have prevented the banking collapse . To the contrary , the government actively promoted and pushed subprime lending and used governmentsponsored entities to encourage banks to give out these loans . In doing so , the government is partially responsible for the banking collapse . I asked a respected professor about your last point once . He saidThere is an organization of professional economists the Society for the Development of Austrian Economics with over 100 members and that has sessions at professional meetings . There are dozens of tenure Austrian econ profs at all kinds of schools . They have written hundreds of professional articles that have passed the peer review process . Peter Boettke is the president of the Southern Economic Association . I could go on . AE is alive an well in professional economics .