Are economists losing authority?

Once centrally embedded in government decision‑making (e.g., Kennedy/Johnson and Reagan cabinets), academic economists now face multiple forces that may reduce their public authority: political polarization around academia, budget and enrollment pressures (including proposed cuts to social‑science funding at the National Science Foundation), and the rising technical competence of AI models that can perform some economic analysis. Taken together these forces could change who sets economic policy and how much the public defers to professional economic judgment. — If true, the decline reshapes policy formation, democratic accountability, and whether economic choices are argued in expert terms or through partisan and technological substitutes.