Posted on 08/30/2009 5:27:06 PM PDT by Brilliant
Picture a recovering alcoholic falling off the wagon. First he says he can handle a few drinks... But eventually he turns mean...
As a drunk is to alcohol, the Bush administration is to budget deficits.
During the 2000 campaign George W. Bush often pledged to maintain fiscal responsibility... [H]is people said they could cut taxes, pay for new programs... and still pay off most of the federal government's debt...
Now the budget director, Mitch Daniels, has admitted the obvious: The federal government faces the prospect of large deficits as far as the eye can see. And sure enough, the drunk has turned mean. As the administration reaches for another bottle... its officials sullenly denounce the "fixation" on budget deficits...
[T]he administration's ever-changing rationale for tax cuts says a lot about its character... Mr. Bush's promises of fiscal responsibility were dishonest...
The administration's top economist certainly changed his mind about deficits very late in the game. Glenn Hubbard... recently denied that deficits raise interest rates and depress private investments. Yet Mr. Hubbard is also the author of an economics textbook... that... explains how, yes, deficits raise interest rates and depress private investment...
When the government sells bonds it competes with private borrowers... [T]his competition should... drive interest rates higher and investment lower. There are exceptions to economic rules, but someone who suddenly discovers such an exception at the precise moment his political masters need a cover story isn't credible.
Will this alcoholic eventually go back on the wagon? Not for a while; he has too many enablers...
It's O.K. to run a deficit during a recession, as long as the deficit is clearly temporary. But both the numbers and the administration's search for excuses tell us that there's nothing temporary about the red ink...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Krugman is incapable of honesty.
This evil rodent is a typical deceitful socialist propagandist.
Paul Krugman, you’ve been punked, punk.
Apparently this REDTARD is a big fan of Psychohistory. Figures.
Socialists are incapable of honesty.
Eurasia has always been at war with Eastasia.
Technically he was right on Bush+congressional republicans’ failure to manage the budget. However honesty, consistency, and playing by the rules are all virtues Krugman’s ilk hope conservatives live by. They don’t realize that the truth will lead to liberty eventually. Liberty is an uphill battle that will always be won.
Article was written in 2003, after the deficit had risen to $400 billion because the Clinton recession lingered into 2001 and the damaged economy after 9/11 - at that time Klugman and others were predicting the deficit wouldn’t be reduced to zero until at least 2012 - but in fact because of the Bush tax cuts which got the economy up and running again, the deficit was reduced by approximately $100 billion in each of the next three years, and would have gone to zero by 2008 had not he Democrat induced free-houses-for-the-poor-at-taxpayer-expense blown up - Krugman isn’t scared by deficits now because he’s learned they can be reduced - now all he has to master is the proper fiscal methods needed to accomplish the feat.....
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