Forget Clark, let’s draft Paul Krugman!
I’ve been joking with some of my friends that we should start a movement to draft NYT columnist Paul Krugman to run in the 2004 presidential elections. I don’t really expect anyone to take the proposal seriously, but I really do like what Krugman has been saying about the Bush administration. Most of what he has said or written since Bush took office has been right on target. If I had it in my power to do so, I would probably make Krugman’s new book, The Great Unraveling, required reading for everyone who plans to vote in 2004.
CalPundit has an interview with Krugman that shows why this economics professor from Princeton is so worried about leaving the future of our country in the hands of the Bush administration. I share this man’s fears.
Here’s an excerpt from the interview that I particularly enjoyed:
Reagan lied a little bit, and his policies were often crazy, but they wouldn’t do 2 -1 = 4. They’d say, if we have our tax cut we’ll have this wonderful supply side thing and the economy will boom and it will pay for itself, which was a crazy theory, but it wasn’t a blatant lie about the actual content of the policy.
Bush says, I’ve got a tax cut that’s aimed at working people, ordinary working people, and then you just take a look at it and discover that most of it’s coming from elimination of the estate tax and a cut in the top bracket, so it’s heavily tilted toward just a handful of people at the top. It’s just a flat lie about what the tax cut is.
So this is different, this is really more extreme. We’re not talking about disagreements about policy at this point, we’re talking about people who insist that things that are flatly not true are true, that black is white, up is down.
Actually, I find it pretty amazing how the current president has retroactively increased my enthusiasm for past presidents that I didn’t particularly like during their terms. I didn’t care much for Reagan or the first president Bush, but I am forced into the realization that, when compared to the current president, these two men were splendid presidents.
In spite of the problems with Amazon.co.jp I described earlier, I now have a copy of The Great Unraveling waiting on my bookshelf. I have a few other books that I have obligations to finish first, but I can’t wait to get back to this one.
I can see that this is going to be a good year for liberal authors. Be sure to make room for Krugman on your reading list. If I have my way about it, this guy will be president some day.
I would vote for Reagan NOW if he was the only guy running against Bush!
Yeah, I remembered you saying that last time we spoke. I thought about adding that comment in this entry, but got distracted by this book review and forgot to add it. \r
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We’ve had elections where the choice was between “the lesser of two evils.” In a Bush/Reagan contest, I guess it would become “the lesser of two mentally enfeebled right-wingers.”
Or the evil of two lessers
What everyone conveniently forgets is that the revenue to the treasury rose dramatically when Reagan enacted his tax cuts. His plan worked - look it up.
Cash in the national treasury in and of itself has nothing to do with the welfare of the people or, really, of the country so what’s your point?
The point is, that Krugman is wrong in these excerpted comments. Reagan was right - the tax cut resulted in a booming economy, and it more than paid for itself. The same thing happened when JFK cut taxes in the 60’s. Tax cuts result in additional revenue every time.
What everyone conveniently forgets...\r
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It’s not about conveniently forgetting anything, it’s about being honest with the American people about the goal of these cuts. \r
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Reagan’s trickle-down approach may have stimulated the economy somewhat, but the deficits that policy created were an enormous burden on our national budgets for the next 18 years. Now we have Bush, whose plan seems to follow Reagan’s to some extent, but the notable exception is that there is even less trickling down. Bush’s plan has been correctly identified as ”mist-down” economics for precisely that reason. \r
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What Krugman is getting at, though, is that Bush is simply lying when he tries to suggest that his tax-cut plans benefit anyone other than the wealthy. Bush’s “average tax cut” figures are all made up. At least Reagan was honest.\r
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It’s been said that democracy will only work until one group figures out that it can take political avantage of all others. Bush has figured this out. He understands that by pandering to the wealthy, he can expect record-breaking campaign contributions, no matter how badly he screws up the economy--or the country.
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