Posted on 08/05/2015 12:31:39 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
".....So now the conventional wisdom is that we’re witnessing a temporary triumph of style over substance; Republican voters like Trump’s bluster, and haven’t (yet) realized that he isn’t making sense.
But if you ask me, the people who are really mistaking style for substance are the pundits. It’s true that Trump isn’t making sense — but neither are the mainstream contenders for the GOP nomination.
On economics, both Jeb Bush and Scott Walker are into deep voodoo. Bush takes his experience of presiding over a giant housing bubble in his state, as proof that he can double America’s underlying growth rate. Walker is Brownback-light: his governorship on Wisconsin was premised on the proposition that tax cuts, spending cuts, and union-bashing can create an economic miracle, but the reality is budget deficits and subpar growth, lagging in particular the performance of neighboring Minnesota..."
(Excerpt) Read more at krugman.blogs.nytimes.com ...
If he or anyone else is interested in the truth, here are the facts:
From Free Fall to Free Markets: How Wisconsin Turned Itself Around
Only an execrable cinder of a economist would insist that spending cuts are deficit-swelling.
Please don’t take this as a criticism of you personally but why should we here on FR bother with anything Pall Crud-man has to say?
It isn’t just Krugman who is lying about Walker and the economy in Wisconsin.
As I’m sure you’ve heard, “figures don’t lie by liars can figure.”
His piece was a good place to make a stand against this.
.. “figures don’t lie, but liars can figure.”
Politifact:
“.....Once again, that figure was not an actual deficit. Indeed, even as a projected shortfall it was overstated.
That’s because the standard for projections made in the months leading up to the next budget cycle is to include all the funding requests made by state agencies — even though, in reality, those requests always get trimmed. That serves to temporarily inflate the actual picture.
In the end, the 2015-’17 budget approved by the Legislature and signed by Walker in July 2015 was balanced — just as every other Wisconsin state budget is.
Our rating
Mixing apples and oranges, Trump said that under Walker, Wisconsin “projected a $1 billion (budget) surplus and it turns out to be a deficit of $2.2 billion.”
There was in early 2014 a projection of a $1 billion surplus heading into the 2015-’17 budget period. Late in 2014, there was a projection of a $2.2 billion shortfall — the difference between expected revenues and the amount of money being requested by state agencies. But the shortfall was never a deficit — and some of the surplus was consciously spent by Republicans, as tax cuts.
For a statement that contains only an element of truth and ignores critical facts that would give a different impression, our rating is Mostly False.”
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