A group of economists has blasted Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, for helping create one of the worst national economic climates ever. The group also endorsed Grassley’s challenger, Democrat Art Small, in the upcoming Senate race.

The comments came during a teleconference earlier this week.

The group of eight economists — which included George Akerlof, 2001 Nobel Laureate in Economics and Koshland Professor of Economics at University of California-Berkeley, and two University of Iowa professors — said Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, has been part of the “backbone” of a runaway economy.

“There simply has not been a worse administration,” Akerlof said in a statement. “It’s extremely important to elect someone to the Senate who knows what to do.”

He said that during the past four years, the Bush administration and Senate Republicans have turned a budget surplus into a record-setting deficit, which has caused significant debts and endangered the country’s ability to operate.

Robert Solow, institute professor emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and 1987 Nobel Laureate in Economics, said tax cuts that Grassley has passed have created massive liabilities without stimulating the economy.

“The tax reduction was not aimed to be an economic stimulus for an economy in recession,” Solow said.

“It was aimed to be redistributed and aimed to remove permanently that money from the government.”

At a forum in Ames on Tuesday, Small said most do not understand the extent of the problem.

“We’ll end up with another $6 trillion on top of the [existing] $7 trillion,” he said. “At the federal level, they are dealing with trillions, which they have to cut into smaller billions, which most people don’t understand anyway.”

Grassley campaign manager Bob Renaud said that Grassley’s tax policies have helped more than 44 million people, which is a change from 29 million in 2000.

“As chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Grassley help steer through Congress the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts to put more money in the family budgets and to help small businesses create jobs,” Renaud said in a statement. “Thanks to this legislation, middle-income families play a lot less income tax, and an additional 15 million low-income families will owe no income tax at all.”

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan testified that the 2001 tax cuts helped keep the recession suffered the same year from becoming worse, he said.