Latest Krugman piece, I think. The New York Times gets no money from me. I’m not sure they get much from anyone else. We have a local leftist rag that I have literally had access to for free for some six weeks, but reading it invariably makes me feel stupider. In general the NYT has the same effect. It temporarily deducts IQ points since they so consistently post such patent nonsense that I have to suspend my normal rational orientation to get into their world.
Anyway, here Krugman points out that Republicans have not been very good historically at cutting budgets. He’s right, of course. His seeming implication is that Democrats are basically like Republicans in this regard. To the extent this is true, this is precisely what is BAD about them. He does not support the point that spending cuts are bad through such idiotic equivalency. We are going bankrupt quickly. This is the point that matters.
Then he makes this for him routine point that “Slashing spending while the economy is still deeply depressed is a recipe for slower economic growth”. This, to put it bluntly, is stupid. The reason we are not growing is because the people who create jobs, for people who pay taxes–and whose growth expands the corporate tax base (hint, hint, not the government)–are AFRAID. They are afraid of Socialism, and the tax increases that everyone knows MUST come at some point, coupled with the massive governmental fecundity that has attended the reign of our Rabbit Lord. He’s sort of like Bill Clinton, but in his case he’s never seen a bureaucracy he didn’t want to dip his stick in to, so that all sorts of agencies get spun off. They are, after all, so cute.
The question is not that the government has to increase income–taxes–at some point. It is that every time we have done that in the past, government spending has risen to keep pace. More than keep pace. WE HAVE TO STOP SPENDING MONEY WE DON’T HAVE, THEN REDUCE THE SIZE OF OUR GOVERNMENT TO A HEALTHY LEVEL. This will facilitate economic growth, the alleviation of poverty, and help us avoid bankruptcy (although in my view we are too far along for less than drastic measures; that is another discussion).
Then he gets into healthcare. Unclever person that he is–and I have no patience for people in positions of influence who peddle snake oil that DOES affect in damaging ways the lives of the poor, the sick and the hungry–he seems utterly unable to assign a cause to healthcare cost increases. It is not greed. It is increased use. I deal with this in a piece simple enough even he would grasp it, if he chose to: Healthcare in ten paragraphs.
As far as the temporary entitlement increase Obama funded disingenuously through the Stimulus, and which is not being renewed by the Republicans: Krugman, why do you have to be so dishonest? Yes, I know that hungry children is a great theme, but really: have you and your ilk created anything but a permanently dysfunctional segment of our society? Can anyone of even the most robustly optimistic disposition see anything positive developing in the near, middle, or long term of the communities where these handouts are apparently important, absent economic growth?
The actual reality here, is that the spike in spending on “Single mothers nursing children destined to fail” was always supposed to be temporary. They said it was temporary then; now it is being treated as some sort of latent principle of the universe. This is what leftists do. They claim they only want a little, then they take a lot.
“Single mothers nursing children destined to fail” is a harsh phrase. As I ponder it, it is quite accurate. Krugman doesn’t care about the lives of the poor. You know he has a nice brownstone somewhere, or Park Ave. suite, or country home.
He doesn’t care about the messes leftists like him leave behind in cities like Detroit, Washington D.C., Chicago, or Phillie. He doesn’t care about the aggregate of suffering. As long as the money keeps flowing, the votes will keep flowing back. It’s an ebb and flow that enriches Democrat politicians, while ruining the lives in advance of the not-yet-born.
Edit: some of the ill humor removed.