John Hawkins [1] notes Paul Krugman doing his usual double standards:
“[Robert] Rubin was one of the ablest Treasury secretaries in American history. But it’s now clear that while Rubinomics made sense in terms of pure economics, it failed to take account of the ugly realities of contemporary American politics.
“And the lesson of the last six years is that the Democrats shouldn’t spend political capital trying to bring the deficit down. They should refrain from actions that make the deficit worse. But given a choice between cutting the deficit and spending more on good things like health care reform, they should choose the spending…”
In other words, when the Democrats were out of power, they complained about the deficit. Now that they’re in power, it’s, “Screw the deficit, let’s tax and spend!”
Now, is this really a big surprise given that the Democrats customarily pretend to be moderates while planning to immediately veer way off to the left once they get in office? No, but the brazenness of Krugman’s on a dime turn on the issue is noteworthy — and oh boy, is this a 180 degree shift for Krugman.
After about 5 minutes of Googling, I was able to pull up all of these previous quotes from Krugman:
“The trouble with railing against the deficit is that it’s hard to get people completely enraged. They ought to be, because this is world class irresponsibility, and one day it’s going to take its toll.” — Paul Krugman on Nov 10, 2005 [2]
He has more of course. Now, granted, using Krugman for target practice is hardly a challange. But someone’s gotta do it.
?