Op-Ed Columnist
Willie Sutton Wept
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: February 17, 2011
There are three things you need to know about the current budget debate. First, it’s essentially fraudulent. Second, most people posing as deficit hawks are faking it. Third, while President Obama hasn’t fully avoided the fraudulence, he’s less bad than his opponents — and he deserves much more credit for fiscal responsibility than he’s getting.
About the fraudulence: Last month, Howard Gleckman of the Tax Policy Center described the president as the “anti-Willie Sutton,” after the holdup artist who reputedly said he robbed banks because that’s where the money is. Indeed, Mr. Obama has lately been going where the money isn’t, making a big deal out of a freeze on nonsecurity discretionary spending, which accounts for only 12 percent of the budget.
But that’s what everyone does. House Republicans talk big about spending cuts — but focus solely on that same small budget sliver.
And by proposing sharp spending cuts right away, Republicans aren’t just going where the money isn’t, they’re also going when the money isn’t. Slashing spending while the economy is still deeply depressed is a recipe for slower economic growth, which means lower tax receipts — so any deficit reduction from G.O.P. cuts would be at least partly offset by lower revenue.
The whole budget debate, then, is a sham. House Republicans, in particular, are literally stealing food from the mouths of babes — nutritional aid to pregnant women and very young children is one of the items on their cutting block — so they can pose, falsely, as deficit hawks.
What would a serious approach to our fiscal problems involve? I can summarize it in seven words: health care, health care, health care, revenue.
Notice that I said “health care,” not “entitlements.” People in Washington often talk as if there were a program called Socialsecuritymedicareandmedicaid, then focus on things like raising the retirement age. But that’s more anti-Willie Suttonism. Long-run projections suggest that spending on the major entitlement programs will rise sharply over the decades ahead, but the great bulk of that rise will come from the health insurance programs, not Social Security.
So anyone who is really serious about the budget should be focusing mainly on health care. And by focusing, I don’t mean writing down a number and expecting someone else to make that number happen — a dodge known in the trade as a “magic asterisk.” I mean getting behind specific actions to rein in costs.
By that standard, the Simpson-Bowles deficit commission, whose work is now being treated as if it were the gold standard of fiscal seriousness, was in fact deeply unserious. Its report “was one big magic asterisk,” Bob Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities told The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein. So is the much-hyped proposal by Paul Ryan, the G.O.P.’s supposed deep thinker du jour, to replace Medicare with vouchers whose value would systematically lag behind health care costs. What’s supposed to happen when seniors find that they can’t afford insurance?
What would real action on health look like? Well, it might include things like giving an independent commission the power to ensure that Medicare only pays for procedures with real medical value; rewarding health care providers for delivering quality care rather than simply paying a fixed sum for every procedure; limiting the tax deductibility of private insurance plans; and so on.
And what do these things have in common? They’re all in last year’s health reform bill.
That’s why I say that Mr. Obama gets too little credit. He has done more to rein in long-run deficits than any previous president. And if his opponents were serious about those deficits, they’d be backing his actions and calling for more; instead, they’ve been screaming about death panels.
Now, even if we manage to rein in health costs, we’ll still have a long-run deficit problem — a fundamental gap between the government’s spending and the amount it collects in taxes. So what should be done?
This brings me to the seventh word of my summary of the real fiscal issues: if you’re serious about the deficit, you should be willing to consider closing at least part of this gap with higher taxes. True, higher taxes aren’t popular, but neither are cuts in government programs. So we should add to the roster of fundamentally unserious people anyone who talks about the deficit — as most of our prominent deficit scolds do — as if it were purely a spending issue.
The bottom line, then, is that while the budget is all over the news, we’re not having a real debate; it’s all sound, fury, and posturing, telling us a lot about the cynicism of politicians but signifying nothing in terms of actual deficit reduction. And we shouldn’t indulge those politicians by pretending otherwise.
Showing posts with label Paul Krugman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Paul Krugman. Show all posts
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Another Krugman Worth Studying -- Eat Your Seed Corn!
This puts us on top of the problem which will be occupying Congress for the next month. Its long-term effects are overwhelming, and it is articles such as this that point the lie to talk radio.
Eat the FutureBy PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: February 13, 2011
On Friday, House Republicans unveiled their proposal for immediate cuts in federal spending. Uncharacteristically, they failed to accompany the release with a catchy slogan. So I’d like to propose one:
Eat the Future.
I’ll explain in a minute. First, let’s talk about the dilemma the G.O.P. faces.
Republican leaders like to claim that the midterms gave them a mandate for sharp cuts in government spending. Some of us believe that the elections were less about spending than they were about persistent high unemployment, but whatever. The key point to understand is that while many voters say that they want lower spending, press the issue a bit further and it turns out that they only want to cut spending on other people.
That’s the lesson from a new survey by the Pew Research Center, in which Americans were asked whether they favored higher or lower spending in a variety of areas. It turns out that they want more, not less, spending on most things, including education and Medicare. They’re evenly divided about spending on aid to the unemployed and — surprise — defense.
The only thing they clearly want to cut is foreign aid, which most Americans believe, wrongly, accounts for a large share of the federal budget.
Pew also asked people how they would like to see states close their budget deficits. Do they favor cuts in either education or health care, the main expenses states face? No. Do they favor tax increases? No. The only deficit-reduction measure with significant support was cuts in public-employee pensions — and even there the public was evenly divided.
The moral is clear. Republicans don’t have a mandate to cut spending; they have a mandate to repeal the laws of arithmetic.
How can voters be so ill informed? In their defense, bear in mind that they have jobs, children to raise, parents to take care of. They don’t have the time or the incentive to study the federal budget, let alone state budgets (which are by and large incomprehensible). So they rely on what they hear from seemingly authoritative figures.
And what they’ve been hearing ever since Ronald Reagan is that their hard-earned dollars are going to waste, paying for vast armies of useless bureaucrats (payroll is only 5 percent of federal spending) and welfare queens driving Cadillacs. How can we expect voters to appreciate fiscal reality when politicians consistently misrepresent that reality?
Which brings me back to the Republican dilemma. The new House majority promised to deliver $100 billion in spending cuts — and its members face the prospect of Tea Party primary challenges if they fail to deliver big cuts. Yet the public opposes cuts in programs it likes — and it likes almost everything. What’s a politician to do?
The answer, once you think about it, is obvious: sacrifice the future. Focus the cuts on programs whose benefits aren’t immediate; basically, eat America’s seed corn. There will be a huge price to pay, eventually — but for now, you can keep the base happy.
If you didn’t understand that logic, you might be puzzled by many items in the House G.O.P. proposal. Why cut a billion dollars from a highly successful program that provides supplemental nutrition to pregnant mothers, infants, and young children? Why cut $648 million from nuclear nonproliferation activities? (One terrorist nuke, assembled from stray ex-Soviet fissile material, can ruin your whole day.) Why cut $578 million from the I.R.S. enforcement budget? (Letting tax cheats run wild doesn’t exactly serve the cause of deficit reduction.)
Once you understand the imperatives Republicans face, however, it all makes sense. By slashing future-oriented programs, they can deliver the instant spending cuts Tea Partiers demand, without imposing too much immediate pain on voters. And as for the future costs — a population damaged by childhood malnutrition, an increased chance of terrorist attacks, a revenue system undermined by widespread tax evasion — well, tomorrow is another day.
In a better world, politicians would talk to voters as if they were adults. They would explain that discretionary spending has little to do with the long-run imbalance between spending and revenues. They would then explain that solving that long-run problem requires two main things: reining in health-care costs and, realistically, increasing taxes to pay for the programs that Americans really want.
But Republican leaders can’t do that, of course: they refuse to admit that taxes ever need to rise, and they spent much of the last two years screaming “death panels!” in response to even the most modest, sensible efforts to ensure that Medicare dollars are well spent.
And so they had to produce something like Friday’s proposal, a plan that would save remarkably little money but would do a remarkably large amount of harm.
Eat the FutureBy PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: February 13, 2011
On Friday, House Republicans unveiled their proposal for immediate cuts in federal spending. Uncharacteristically, they failed to accompany the release with a catchy slogan. So I’d like to propose one:
Eat the Future.
I’ll explain in a minute. First, let’s talk about the dilemma the G.O.P. faces.
Republican leaders like to claim that the midterms gave them a mandate for sharp cuts in government spending. Some of us believe that the elections were less about spending than they were about persistent high unemployment, but whatever. The key point to understand is that while many voters say that they want lower spending, press the issue a bit further and it turns out that they only want to cut spending on other people.
That’s the lesson from a new survey by the Pew Research Center, in which Americans were asked whether they favored higher or lower spending in a variety of areas. It turns out that they want more, not less, spending on most things, including education and Medicare. They’re evenly divided about spending on aid to the unemployed and — surprise — defense.
The only thing they clearly want to cut is foreign aid, which most Americans believe, wrongly, accounts for a large share of the federal budget.
Pew also asked people how they would like to see states close their budget deficits. Do they favor cuts in either education or health care, the main expenses states face? No. Do they favor tax increases? No. The only deficit-reduction measure with significant support was cuts in public-employee pensions — and even there the public was evenly divided.
The moral is clear. Republicans don’t have a mandate to cut spending; they have a mandate to repeal the laws of arithmetic.
How can voters be so ill informed? In their defense, bear in mind that they have jobs, children to raise, parents to take care of. They don’t have the time or the incentive to study the federal budget, let alone state budgets (which are by and large incomprehensible). So they rely on what they hear from seemingly authoritative figures.
And what they’ve been hearing ever since Ronald Reagan is that their hard-earned dollars are going to waste, paying for vast armies of useless bureaucrats (payroll is only 5 percent of federal spending) and welfare queens driving Cadillacs. How can we expect voters to appreciate fiscal reality when politicians consistently misrepresent that reality?
Which brings me back to the Republican dilemma. The new House majority promised to deliver $100 billion in spending cuts — and its members face the prospect of Tea Party primary challenges if they fail to deliver big cuts. Yet the public opposes cuts in programs it likes — and it likes almost everything. What’s a politician to do?
The answer, once you think about it, is obvious: sacrifice the future. Focus the cuts on programs whose benefits aren’t immediate; basically, eat America’s seed corn. There will be a huge price to pay, eventually — but for now, you can keep the base happy.
If you didn’t understand that logic, you might be puzzled by many items in the House G.O.P. proposal. Why cut a billion dollars from a highly successful program that provides supplemental nutrition to pregnant mothers, infants, and young children? Why cut $648 million from nuclear nonproliferation activities? (One terrorist nuke, assembled from stray ex-Soviet fissile material, can ruin your whole day.) Why cut $578 million from the I.R.S. enforcement budget? (Letting tax cheats run wild doesn’t exactly serve the cause of deficit reduction.)
Once you understand the imperatives Republicans face, however, it all makes sense. By slashing future-oriented programs, they can deliver the instant spending cuts Tea Partiers demand, without imposing too much immediate pain on voters. And as for the future costs — a population damaged by childhood malnutrition, an increased chance of terrorist attacks, a revenue system undermined by widespread tax evasion — well, tomorrow is another day.
In a better world, politicians would talk to voters as if they were adults. They would explain that discretionary spending has little to do with the long-run imbalance between spending and revenues. They would then explain that solving that long-run problem requires two main things: reining in health-care costs and, realistically, increasing taxes to pay for the programs that Americans really want.
But Republican leaders can’t do that, of course: they refuse to admit that taxes ever need to rise, and they spent much of the last two years screaming “death panels!” in response to even the most modest, sensible efforts to ensure that Medicare dollars are well spent.
And so they had to produce something like Friday’s proposal, a plan that would save remarkably little money but would do a remarkably large amount of harm.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Krugman: Economics and Politics - Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com
I spent some time reding this and the comments of other readers -- especially comment #31:
Economics and Politics - Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com: "I’ll be frank: the discussion of fiscal stimulus this past year and a half has filled me with despair over the state of the economics profession. If you believe stimulus is a bad idea, fine; but surely the least one could have expected is that opponents would listen, even a bit, to what proponents were saying. In particular, the case for stimulus has always been highly conditional. Fiscal stimulus is what you do only if two conditions are satisfied: high unemployment, so that the proximate risk is deflation, not inflation; and monetary policy constrained by the zero lower bound."
Economics and Politics - Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com: "I’ll be frank: the discussion of fiscal stimulus this past year and a half has filled me with despair over the state of the economics profession. If you believe stimulus is a bad idea, fine; but surely the least one could have expected is that opponents would listen, even a bit, to what proponents were saying. In particular, the case for stimulus has always been highly conditional. Fiscal stimulus is what you do only if two conditions are satisfied: high unemployment, so that the proximate risk is deflation, not inflation; and monetary policy constrained by the zero lower bound."
Friday, July 16, 2010
Haven't Posted Long in a While
(c) 2010 F. Bruce Abel
It's so easy to cut and save to one's blog a short paragraph, with the title automatically embedded so that the reader can click on the whole article.
Sometimes the comments to a Krugman piece are just as good as the Krugman piece.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/opinion/16krugman.html?_r=2&hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1279278112-1dE8WnYxO7hvuUJFT60F0Q
Thus:
Friday, July 16, 2010
OpinionWorldU.S.N.Y. /
Redo That Voodoo
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Republicans are talking confidently about the midterm elections, which is cause for concern.
Comments are no longer being accepted.
Edward Reno, NV July 16th, 2010 2:00 am
I've only taken two basic university classes in economics. I mostly read my medical journals for work and history for recreation. I do like to follow the news daily. There are a few things that are extremely obvious even to a non-expert like me! For example, that both the Reagan and Bush era tax cuts to the wealthy led to larger deficits and long term decline in growth. And, that deregulating any industry too much can lead to disasters, since the public is left unguarded against excess. What I fail to understand is this: do these conservative Congressional Republicans really believe that tax cuts for the wealthy work? Do they believe that more and more deregulation is in the interest of the nation's safety and prosperity? That is, have they missed the obvious evidence? Or, do they merely spout propaganda to mislead people so that they get the backing of wealthy donors?
Recommend Recommended by 1639 Readers
==================================================
Douglas Minneapolis July 16th, 2010 11:11 am
It would be cynical enough if it were only about pure economics. But it isn't, and it never has been. A nation in which the majority owe more than they make doesn't understand economics at any level. That cupidity makes Americans vulnerable to manipulation on breath-taking scale.
What it is about is ownership. Many fair-minded conservative Americans have been duped for generation after generation by the little club of the hyper-wealthy that appeal to the patriotism and sense of fairness of their poorer compatriots to get them to tilt the playing field ever further. Right now, about a third of America's billionaires inherited it. They didn't work for it. They didn't have to be good at something or know anything to acquire it. It was just handed over - the world's biggest welfare check. The working people who helped earn that wealth for the master in the first place certainly don't see any of it. These insanely wealthy people suddenly find themselves in charge of enormous economic power, and also with choices to make that affect millions of lives. You might as well give a six-year-old a TAC-nuke. People of this stripe lobby Congress, outsource their factories, and bank in the Caymans. They do it because they don't owe this country or its people anything. They belong to a small nation that has no boundaries, and whose passport is universally recognized.
George Carlin said it best. "It's a club.....and you ain't in it."
Recommended by 208 Readers
Jerry St. Louis July 16th, 2010 11:44 am
What is totally amazing to me is that the Republican Party has convinced so many middle and lower income groups to believe that tax cuts on the wealthy is somehow good for them and the country. Now that is Voodoo.
I have a Republican conservative friend who is constantly harping about Obama and higher taxes, and all the while this guy is on Social Security and pays no taxes anyway. Go figure! When I ask him what his complaint is he has no answer, he just hates Obama and because he believes in the Republican idea that we should not need taxes to pay for the hugh military he likes so much.
What the Democrats need is better propaganda and a boss that is a little more aggressive and willing to fight a propaganda ideology war.
Kamachanda Illinois July 16th, 2010 12:05 pm
“There’s no evidence whatsoever that the Bush tax cuts actually diminished revenue"
"The Congressional Budget Office, the Treasury Department, the Joint Committee on Taxation, the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers and a former Bush administration economist all say that tax cuts lead to revenues that are lower than they otherwise would have been – even if they spur some economic growth."
http://www.factcheck.org/
I am so sick of the lies.
Recommend Recommended by 117 Readers Report as Inappropriate188.HIGHLIGHT (what's this?) Sal AnthonyQueens, NYJuly 16th, 201012:58 pmDear Mr. Krugman,
The reason we always hear that the rate of a permanent flat tax ought to be between 19 and 23 percent is because no matter how we've tried to configure the tax system over the course of the past eighty years or so, on average, that's what we've managed to collect. This happens because the higher you raise rates, the more those being slammed find ways to avoid getting hit.
As for the Reagan years, anyone can look up the fact we collected half a trillion dollars in taxes in 1981 and nearly a trillion in 1989. Revenues doubled over the course of his presidency. That is irrefutable economic fact. That we spent more than we brought in? So what else is new? As for Clinton's mild increase in taxes generating prosperity - surely you're joking. Subtract the blowout tax revenues brought in by the internet boom on Wall Street and we're quickly back to hundred-billion dollar budget deficits.
The issue is spending. Always has been, always will be. We can debate what we ought to spend ON, and I will surely concede that I'd rather send money to the unemployed than to bail out failing banks, but playing with the tax code is where all the mischief happens, and we should stop doing it.
When you put the same rate on everyone, someone making ten times what someone else makes is paying TEN TIMES the amount of taxes. If that isn't enough for you bloodthirsty liberals, then something's clearly wrong in your moral math.
Cordially,
Sal Anthony
Recommend Recommended by 26 Readers Report as Inappropriate190.HIGHLIGHT (what's this?) Nick LentoCliffside Park, NJJuly 16th, 201012:58 pmThis is a time when Democrats should be passing uncompromised good/progressive legislation that is popular with the people and that repudiates the old Bush/Reagan agendas......and then let the Republicans try to obstruct using the filibuster.
Let them talk and talk for days weeks and even months! let them talk right up till election day itself trying to justify their intellectually, morally and spiritually bankrupt positions that simply serve to enhance the short term wealth of a relatively tiny portion of the electorate.
Of course such a tactic would require a bold strategic vision and profoundly courageous leadership.
What the administration still doesn't get is that their poll numbers will go up when they truly stand up and lead. No compromise....just lead and stick to your guns. The American people are not so stupid nor so ignorant as the Republican propaganda machine would have us believe.
Bullies need to be stood up to and defeated. Please Mr President, take the lead and fight back.....enough with the compromising Mr Nice Guy stuff.
Recommend Recommended by 84 Readers Report as Inappropriate191.HIGHLIGHT (what's this?) John G.NYCJuly 16th, 201012:59 pmThe GOP has now reduced its entire fiscal program to one Orwellian sentence: Tax cuts good, spending bad.
Recommend Recommended by 55 Readers Report as Inappropriate216.HIGHLIGHT (what's this?) richard wilsonEurekaJuly 16th, 20101:12 pmIm embarrased by how gullible the working class in the US are. I bought the Tea Party line and , once my wife became unemployed, I watched Republicans clap for war and give a thumbs down for unemployment extensions. Why? Spending they say. Right. And, you continue to waste money on two unwinnable wars. Our infrastructure is gone, no party has done anything to create jobs and the unemployed are getting worse. If Huey Long came back Id vote for him. Anyone, even Lenin. Trust me, I know exactly what he did.You want a class war---then have one.
Recommend Recommended by 71 Readers Report as Inappropriate242.HIGHLIGHT (what's this?) Charles W.NJJuly 16th, 20101:39 pmI will take Voodoo economics over Marxist economics any day.
Recommend Recommended by 21
.
Cdr. John Newlin Vista, Calif. July 16th, 2010 2:05 pm
Aye, Dr. Krugman, there's the rub. And where is the President on this issue? Nowhere, Dr. Krugman. He's the invisible Commander-in-Chief. I wonder if he relies on you and others to spill a lot of ink in the Times and other organs so he doesn't have to take to the bully pulpit.
I don't think he's listening, Dr. Krugman. And his deafness is sending this once great country careening to the cliff of oblivion.
Then there is the complication of the Tea Party nut cases. Millions of people actually support this "movement." They are frustrated, angry, and are willing to believe anything that Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck spouts. Why is that? It's because the President has not a clue on how to lead, how to fight for what he believes, how to marshal the assets at his disposal to combat the forces of evil that have risen from the ashes of the Bush/Cheney disaster.
It is being reported today that Timothy Geithner, the Wall Street fox Obama hired to guard the nation's hen house, is lobbying against the appointment of Elizabeth Warren as the head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. If the President makes the mistake of listening to Geithner, his presidency is doomed and we will suffer the slings and arrows of Boehner and McConnell. Those arrows will slay the middle class in America for certain.
Recommend Recommended by 51 Readers
MarkTucson, Arizona July 16th, 2010 2:07 pm
Paul: I am one Arizonan who CANNOT wait until 2012 to make Senator Kyl unemployed! He may be the most heartless man in America leading the fight to NOT extend unemployment benefits!
Recommend Recommended by 72 Readers
VA Vancouver, BC July 16th, 2010 2:18 pm
Absolutely this is happening right before our very noses. You can read it in any major newspaper or comment site.
The bank bailout fed blood to the voodoo economics vampire.
Recommend Recommended by 17 Readers
RayWashingtonJuly 16th, 2010
2:40 pm
With apologies to Karl Marx: "Tax cuts are the opiate of the masses."
Recommend Recommended by 36 Readers
Comments are no longer being accepted. Please submit a letter to the editor for print consideration.
It's so easy to cut and save to one's blog a short paragraph, with the title automatically embedded so that the reader can click on the whole article.
Sometimes the comments to a Krugman piece are just as good as the Krugman piece.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/16/opinion/16krugman.html?_r=2&hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1279278112-1dE8WnYxO7hvuUJFT60F0Q
Thus:
Friday, July 16, 2010
OpinionWorldU.S.N.Y. /
Redo That Voodoo
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Republicans are talking confidently about the midterm elections, which is cause for concern.
Comments are no longer being accepted.
Edward Reno, NV July 16th, 2010 2:00 am
I've only taken two basic university classes in economics. I mostly read my medical journals for work and history for recreation. I do like to follow the news daily. There are a few things that are extremely obvious even to a non-expert like me! For example, that both the Reagan and Bush era tax cuts to the wealthy led to larger deficits and long term decline in growth. And, that deregulating any industry too much can lead to disasters, since the public is left unguarded against excess. What I fail to understand is this: do these conservative Congressional Republicans really believe that tax cuts for the wealthy work? Do they believe that more and more deregulation is in the interest of the nation's safety and prosperity? That is, have they missed the obvious evidence? Or, do they merely spout propaganda to mislead people so that they get the backing of wealthy donors?
Recommend Recommended by 1639 Readers
==================================================
Douglas Minneapolis July 16th, 2010 11:11 am
It would be cynical enough if it were only about pure economics. But it isn't, and it never has been. A nation in which the majority owe more than they make doesn't understand economics at any level. That cupidity makes Americans vulnerable to manipulation on breath-taking scale.
What it is about is ownership. Many fair-minded conservative Americans have been duped for generation after generation by the little club of the hyper-wealthy that appeal to the patriotism and sense of fairness of their poorer compatriots to get them to tilt the playing field ever further. Right now, about a third of America's billionaires inherited it. They didn't work for it. They didn't have to be good at something or know anything to acquire it. It was just handed over - the world's biggest welfare check. The working people who helped earn that wealth for the master in the first place certainly don't see any of it. These insanely wealthy people suddenly find themselves in charge of enormous economic power, and also with choices to make that affect millions of lives. You might as well give a six-year-old a TAC-nuke. People of this stripe lobby Congress, outsource their factories, and bank in the Caymans. They do it because they don't owe this country or its people anything. They belong to a small nation that has no boundaries, and whose passport is universally recognized.
George Carlin said it best. "It's a club.....and you ain't in it."
Recommended by 208 Readers
Jerry St. Louis July 16th, 2010 11:44 am
What is totally amazing to me is that the Republican Party has convinced so many middle and lower income groups to believe that tax cuts on the wealthy is somehow good for them and the country. Now that is Voodoo.
I have a Republican conservative friend who is constantly harping about Obama and higher taxes, and all the while this guy is on Social Security and pays no taxes anyway. Go figure! When I ask him what his complaint is he has no answer, he just hates Obama and because he believes in the Republican idea that we should not need taxes to pay for the hugh military he likes so much.
What the Democrats need is better propaganda and a boss that is a little more aggressive and willing to fight a propaganda ideology war.
Kamachanda Illinois July 16th, 2010 12:05 pm
“There’s no evidence whatsoever that the Bush tax cuts actually diminished revenue"
"The Congressional Budget Office, the Treasury Department, the Joint Committee on Taxation, the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers and a former Bush administration economist all say that tax cuts lead to revenues that are lower than they otherwise would have been – even if they spur some economic growth."
http://www.factcheck.org/
I am so sick of the lies.
Recommend Recommended by 117 Readers Report as Inappropriate188.HIGHLIGHT (what's this?) Sal AnthonyQueens, NYJuly 16th, 201012:58 pmDear Mr. Krugman,
The reason we always hear that the rate of a permanent flat tax ought to be between 19 and 23 percent is because no matter how we've tried to configure the tax system over the course of the past eighty years or so, on average, that's what we've managed to collect. This happens because the higher you raise rates, the more those being slammed find ways to avoid getting hit.
As for the Reagan years, anyone can look up the fact we collected half a trillion dollars in taxes in 1981 and nearly a trillion in 1989. Revenues doubled over the course of his presidency. That is irrefutable economic fact. That we spent more than we brought in? So what else is new? As for Clinton's mild increase in taxes generating prosperity - surely you're joking. Subtract the blowout tax revenues brought in by the internet boom on Wall Street and we're quickly back to hundred-billion dollar budget deficits.
The issue is spending. Always has been, always will be. We can debate what we ought to spend ON, and I will surely concede that I'd rather send money to the unemployed than to bail out failing banks, but playing with the tax code is where all the mischief happens, and we should stop doing it.
When you put the same rate on everyone, someone making ten times what someone else makes is paying TEN TIMES the amount of taxes. If that isn't enough for you bloodthirsty liberals, then something's clearly wrong in your moral math.
Cordially,
Sal Anthony
Recommend Recommended by 26 Readers Report as Inappropriate190.HIGHLIGHT (what's this?) Nick LentoCliffside Park, NJJuly 16th, 201012:58 pmThis is a time when Democrats should be passing uncompromised good/progressive legislation that is popular with the people and that repudiates the old Bush/Reagan agendas......and then let the Republicans try to obstruct using the filibuster.
Let them talk and talk for days weeks and even months! let them talk right up till election day itself trying to justify their intellectually, morally and spiritually bankrupt positions that simply serve to enhance the short term wealth of a relatively tiny portion of the electorate.
Of course such a tactic would require a bold strategic vision and profoundly courageous leadership.
What the administration still doesn't get is that their poll numbers will go up when they truly stand up and lead. No compromise....just lead and stick to your guns. The American people are not so stupid nor so ignorant as the Republican propaganda machine would have us believe.
Bullies need to be stood up to and defeated. Please Mr President, take the lead and fight back.....enough with the compromising Mr Nice Guy stuff.
Recommend Recommended by 84 Readers Report as Inappropriate191.HIGHLIGHT (what's this?) John G.NYCJuly 16th, 201012:59 pmThe GOP has now reduced its entire fiscal program to one Orwellian sentence: Tax cuts good, spending bad.
Recommend Recommended by 55 Readers Report as Inappropriate216.HIGHLIGHT (what's this?) richard wilsonEurekaJuly 16th, 20101:12 pmIm embarrased by how gullible the working class in the US are. I bought the Tea Party line and , once my wife became unemployed, I watched Republicans clap for war and give a thumbs down for unemployment extensions. Why? Spending they say. Right. And, you continue to waste money on two unwinnable wars. Our infrastructure is gone, no party has done anything to create jobs and the unemployed are getting worse. If Huey Long came back Id vote for him. Anyone, even Lenin. Trust me, I know exactly what he did.You want a class war---then have one.
Recommend Recommended by 71 Readers Report as Inappropriate242.HIGHLIGHT (what's this?) Charles W.NJJuly 16th, 20101:39 pmI will take Voodoo economics over Marxist economics any day.
Recommend Recommended by 21
.
Cdr. John Newlin Vista, Calif. July 16th, 2010 2:05 pm
Aye, Dr. Krugman, there's the rub. And where is the President on this issue? Nowhere, Dr. Krugman. He's the invisible Commander-in-Chief. I wonder if he relies on you and others to spill a lot of ink in the Times and other organs so he doesn't have to take to the bully pulpit.
I don't think he's listening, Dr. Krugman. And his deafness is sending this once great country careening to the cliff of oblivion.
Then there is the complication of the Tea Party nut cases. Millions of people actually support this "movement." They are frustrated, angry, and are willing to believe anything that Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck spouts. Why is that? It's because the President has not a clue on how to lead, how to fight for what he believes, how to marshal the assets at his disposal to combat the forces of evil that have risen from the ashes of the Bush/Cheney disaster.
It is being reported today that Timothy Geithner, the Wall Street fox Obama hired to guard the nation's hen house, is lobbying against the appointment of Elizabeth Warren as the head of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. If the President makes the mistake of listening to Geithner, his presidency is doomed and we will suffer the slings and arrows of Boehner and McConnell. Those arrows will slay the middle class in America for certain.
Recommend Recommended by 51 Readers
MarkTucson, Arizona July 16th, 2010 2:07 pm
Paul: I am one Arizonan who CANNOT wait until 2012 to make Senator Kyl unemployed! He may be the most heartless man in America leading the fight to NOT extend unemployment benefits!
Recommend Recommended by 72 Readers
VA Vancouver, BC July 16th, 2010 2:18 pm
Absolutely this is happening right before our very noses. You can read it in any major newspaper or comment site.
The bank bailout fed blood to the voodoo economics vampire.
Recommend Recommended by 17 Readers
RayWashingtonJuly 16th, 2010
2:40 pm
With apologies to Karl Marx: "Tax cuts are the opiate of the masses."
Recommend Recommended by 36 Readers
Comments are no longer being accepted. Please submit a letter to the editor for print consideration.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Op-Ed Columnist - A Little Economic Realism - NYTimes.com
(c) 2010 F. Bruce Abel
David Brooks weighs in on the opposite side of Paul Krugman. Keynes 1; Friedman 1.
This is important and importantly bad. 1930's here we come.
But his logic about corporate enterpreneurs is flawless.
Op-Ed Columnist - A Little Economic Realism - NYTimes.com: "You can’t read models, but you do talk to entrepreneurs in Racine and Yakima. Higher deficits will make them more insecure and more risk-averse, not less. They’re afraid of a fiscal crisis. They’re afraid of future tax increases. They don’t believe government-stimulated growth is real and lasting. Maybe they are wrong to feel this way, but they do. And they are the ones who invest and hire, not the theorists."
David Brooks weighs in on the opposite side of Paul Krugman. Keynes 1; Friedman 1.
This is important and importantly bad. 1930's here we come.
But his logic about corporate enterpreneurs is flawless.
Op-Ed Columnist - A Little Economic Realism - NYTimes.com: "You can’t read models, but you do talk to entrepreneurs in Racine and Yakima. Higher deficits will make them more insecure and more risk-averse, not less. They’re afraid of a fiscal crisis. They’re afraid of future tax increases. They don’t believe government-stimulated growth is real and lasting. Maybe they are wrong to feel this way, but they do. And they are the ones who invest and hire, not the theorists."
Monday, June 28, 2010
Krugman - The Third Depression - NYTimes.com
(c) 2010 F. Bruce Abel
Hooverism rampant. I happen to agree with Paul Krugman.
Op-Ed Columnist - The Third Depression - NYTimes.com: "So I don’t think this is really about Greece, or indeed about any realistic appreciation of the tradeoffs between deficits and jobs. It is, instead, the victory of an orthodoxy that has little to do with rational analysis, whose main tenet is that imposing suffering on other people is how you show leadership in tough times."
Hooverism rampant. I happen to agree with Paul Krugman.
Op-Ed Columnist - The Third Depression - NYTimes.com: "So I don’t think this is really about Greece, or indeed about any realistic appreciation of the tradeoffs between deficits and jobs. It is, instead, the victory of an orthodoxy that has little to do with rational analysis, whose main tenet is that imposing suffering on other people is how you show leadership in tough times."
Friday, June 18, 2010
Op-Ed Columnist - That ’30s Feeling - NYTimes.com
Op-Ed Columnist - That ’30s Feeling - NYTimes.com: "Suddenly, creating jobs is out, inflicting pain is in. Condemning deficits and refusing to help a still-struggling economy has become the new fashion everywhere, including the United States, where 52 senators voted against extending aid to the unemployed despite the highest rate of long-term joblessness since the 1930s."
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Lost Decade, Here We Come - Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com
Lost Decade, Here We Come - Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com: "But don’t we need to worry about government debt? Yes — but slashing spending while the economy is still deeply depressed is both an extremely costly and quite ineffective way to reduce future debt. Costly, because it depresses the economy further; ineffective, because by depressing the economy, fiscal contraction now reduces tax receipts. A rough estimate right now is that cutting spending by 1 percent of GDP raises the unemployment rate by .75 percent compared with what it would otherwise be, yet reduces future debt by less than 0.5 percent of GDP."
Monday, May 24, 2010
Op-Ed Columnist - Obama Versus the Corporations - NYTimes.com
Op-Ed Columnist - Obama Versus the Corporations - NYTimes.com: "From the outside, this rage against regulation seems bizarre. I mean, what did they expect? The financial industry, in particular, ran wild under deregulation, eventually bringing on a crisis that has left 15 million Americans unemployed, and required large-scale taxpayer-financed bailouts to avoid an even worse outcome. Did Wall Street expect to emerge from all that without facing some new restrictions? Apparently it did."
Monday, May 10, 2010
Krugman -- A Whole New View of Government
(c) 2010 F. Bruce Abel
Yes, yes!
Yes!!!
Wonkish, but read it!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/10/opinion/10krugman.html?hp
Yes, yes!
Yes!!!
Wonkish, but read it!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/10/opinion/10krugman.html?hp
Monday, May 3, 2010
Krugman -- What's the Matter With Georgia?
(c) 2010 F. Bruce Abel
I always get tricked with a headline mentioning "Georgia." Ever since we visited Genny in Tbilisi.
Click on title above.
I always get tricked with a headline mentioning "Georgia." Ever since we visited Genny in Tbilisi.
Click on title above.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Two Columns and Hope
(c) 2010 F. Bruce Abel
Two columns give me great hope today: Brooks and Krugman. Both in the NYT.
Op-Ed Columnist
Health Reform Myths
comments (5)
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: March 11, 2010
Health reform is back from the dead. Many Democrats have realized that their electoral prospects will be better if they can point to a real accomplishment. Polling on reform — which was never as negative as portrayed — shows signs of improving. And I’ve been really impressed by the passion and energy of this guy Barack Obama. Where was he last year?
Times Topics: Health Care Reform
Post a Comment »
Read All Comments (5) »
But reform still has to run a gantlet of misinformation and outright lies. So let me address three big myths about the proposed reform, myths that are believed by many people who consider themselves well-informed, but who have actually fallen for deceptive spin.
The first of these myths, which has been all over the airwaves lately, is the claim that President Obama is proposing a government takeover of one-sixth of the economy, the share of G.D.P. currently spent on health.
Well, if having the government regulate and subsidize health insurance is a “takeover,” that takeover happened long ago. Medicare, Medicaid, and other government programs already pay for almost half of American health care, while private insurance pays for barely more than a third (the rest is mostly out-of-pocket expenses). And the great bulk of that private insurance is provided via employee plans, which are both subsidized with tax exemptions and tightly regulated.
The only part of health care in which there isn’t already a lot of federal intervention is the market in which individuals who can’t get employment-based coverage buy their own insurance. And that market, in case you hadn’t noticed, is a disaster — no coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions, coverage dropped when you get sick, and huge premium increases in the middle of an economic crisis. It’s this sector, plus the plight of Americans with no insurance at all, that reform aims to fix. What’s wrong with that?
The second myth is that the proposed reform does nothing to control costs. To support this claim, critics point to reports by the Medicare actuary, who predicts that total national health spending would be slightly higher in 2019 with reform than without it.
Even if this prediction were correct, it points to a pretty good bargain. The actuary’s assessment of the Senate bill, for example, finds that it would raise total health care spending by less than 1 percent, while extending coverage to 34 million Americans who would otherwise be uninsured. That’s a large expansion in coverage at an essentially trivial cost.
And it gets better as we go further into the future: the Congressional Budget Office has just concluded, in a new report, that the arithmetic of reform will look better in its second decade than it did in its first.
Furthermore, there’s good reason to believe that all such estimates are too pessimistic. There are many cost-saving efforts in the proposed reform, but nobody knows how well any one of these efforts will work. And as a result, official estimates don’t give the plan much credit for any of them. What the actuary and the budget office do is a bit like looking at an oil company’s prospecting efforts, concluding that any individual test hole it drills will probably come up dry, and predicting as a consequence that the company won’t find any oil at all — when the odds are, in fact, that some of the test holes will pan out, and produce big payoffs. Realistically, health reform is likely to do much better at controlling costs than any of the official projections suggest.
Which brings me to the third myth: that health reform is fiscally irresponsible. How can people say this given Congressional Budget Office predictions — which, as I’ve already argued, are probably too pessimistic — that reform would actually reduce the deficit? Critics argue that we should ignore what’s actually in the legislation; when cost control actually starts to bite on Medicare, they insist, Congress will back down.
But this isn’t an argument against Obamacare, it’s a declaration that we can’t control Medicare costs no matter what. And it also flies in the face of history: contrary to legend, past efforts to limit Medicare spending have in fact “stuck,” rather than being withdrawn in the face of political pressure.
So what’s the reality of the proposed reform? Compared with the Platonic ideal of reform, Obamacare comes up short. If the votes were there, I would much prefer to see Medicare for all.
For a real piece of passable legislation, however, it looks very good. It wouldn’t transform our health care system; in fact, Americans whose jobs come with health coverage would see little effect. But it would make a huge difference to the less fortunate among us, even as it would do more to control costs than anything we’ve done before.
This is a reasonable, responsible plan. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Two columns give me great hope today: Brooks and Krugman. Both in the NYT.
Op-Ed Columnist
Health Reform Myths
comments (5)
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: March 11, 2010
Health reform is back from the dead. Many Democrats have realized that their electoral prospects will be better if they can point to a real accomplishment. Polling on reform — which was never as negative as portrayed — shows signs of improving. And I’ve been really impressed by the passion and energy of this guy Barack Obama. Where was he last year?
Times Topics: Health Care Reform
Post a Comment »
Read All Comments (5) »
But reform still has to run a gantlet of misinformation and outright lies. So let me address three big myths about the proposed reform, myths that are believed by many people who consider themselves well-informed, but who have actually fallen for deceptive spin.
The first of these myths, which has been all over the airwaves lately, is the claim that President Obama is proposing a government takeover of one-sixth of the economy, the share of G.D.P. currently spent on health.
Well, if having the government regulate and subsidize health insurance is a “takeover,” that takeover happened long ago. Medicare, Medicaid, and other government programs already pay for almost half of American health care, while private insurance pays for barely more than a third (the rest is mostly out-of-pocket expenses). And the great bulk of that private insurance is provided via employee plans, which are both subsidized with tax exemptions and tightly regulated.
The only part of health care in which there isn’t already a lot of federal intervention is the market in which individuals who can’t get employment-based coverage buy their own insurance. And that market, in case you hadn’t noticed, is a disaster — no coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions, coverage dropped when you get sick, and huge premium increases in the middle of an economic crisis. It’s this sector, plus the plight of Americans with no insurance at all, that reform aims to fix. What’s wrong with that?
The second myth is that the proposed reform does nothing to control costs. To support this claim, critics point to reports by the Medicare actuary, who predicts that total national health spending would be slightly higher in 2019 with reform than without it.
Even if this prediction were correct, it points to a pretty good bargain. The actuary’s assessment of the Senate bill, for example, finds that it would raise total health care spending by less than 1 percent, while extending coverage to 34 million Americans who would otherwise be uninsured. That’s a large expansion in coverage at an essentially trivial cost.
And it gets better as we go further into the future: the Congressional Budget Office has just concluded, in a new report, that the arithmetic of reform will look better in its second decade than it did in its first.
Furthermore, there’s good reason to believe that all such estimates are too pessimistic. There are many cost-saving efforts in the proposed reform, but nobody knows how well any one of these efforts will work. And as a result, official estimates don’t give the plan much credit for any of them. What the actuary and the budget office do is a bit like looking at an oil company’s prospecting efforts, concluding that any individual test hole it drills will probably come up dry, and predicting as a consequence that the company won’t find any oil at all — when the odds are, in fact, that some of the test holes will pan out, and produce big payoffs. Realistically, health reform is likely to do much better at controlling costs than any of the official projections suggest.
Which brings me to the third myth: that health reform is fiscally irresponsible. How can people say this given Congressional Budget Office predictions — which, as I’ve already argued, are probably too pessimistic — that reform would actually reduce the deficit? Critics argue that we should ignore what’s actually in the legislation; when cost control actually starts to bite on Medicare, they insist, Congress will back down.
But this isn’t an argument against Obamacare, it’s a declaration that we can’t control Medicare costs no matter what. And it also flies in the face of history: contrary to legend, past efforts to limit Medicare spending have in fact “stuck,” rather than being withdrawn in the face of political pressure.
So what’s the reality of the proposed reform? Compared with the Platonic ideal of reform, Obamacare comes up short. If the votes were there, I would much prefer to see Medicare for all.
For a real piece of passable legislation, however, it looks very good. It wouldn’t transform our health care system; in fact, Americans whose jobs come with health coverage would see little effect. But it would make a huge difference to the less fortunate among us, even as it would do more to control costs than anything we’ve done before.
This is a reasonable, responsible plan. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Krugman
(c) 2010 F. Bruce Abel
I'm with Paul Krugman all the way in his writings, but....I'm also over 65 and not rich, and I jealously do not want to expand Medicare to those under 65. I wonder if Krugman is younger than 65. I bet he is.
(I feel guilty about what I just wrote. Don't tell anybody.)
Op-Ed Columnist
Republicans and Medicare
comments (277)
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: February 11, 2010
“Don’t cut Medicare. The reform bills passed by the House and Senate cut Medicare by approximately $500 billion. This is wrong.” So declared Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, in a recent op-ed article written with John Goodman, the president of the National Center for Policy Analysis.
Skip to next paragraph
Times Topics: Medicare
Read All Comments (277) »
And irony died.
Now, Mr. Gingrich was just repeating the current party line. Furious denunciations of any effort to seek cost savings in Medicare — death panels! — have been central to Republican efforts to demonize health reform. What’s amazing, however, is that they’re getting away with it.
Why is this amazing? It’s not just the fact that Republicans are now posing as staunch defenders of a program they have hated ever since the days when Ronald Reagan warned that Medicare would destroy America’s freedom. Nor is it even the fact that, as House speaker, Mr. Gingrich personally tried to ram through deep cuts in Medicare — and, in 1995, went so far as to shut down the federal government in an attempt to bully Bill Clinton into accepting those cuts.
After all, you could explain this about-face by supposing that Republicans have had a change of heart, that they have finally realized just how much good Medicare does. And if you believe that, I’ve got some mortgage-backed securities you might want to buy.
No, what’s truly mind-boggling is this: Even as Republicans denounce modest proposals to rein in Medicare’s rising costs, they are, themselves, seeking to dismantle the whole program. And the process of dismantling would begin with spending cuts of about $650 billion over the next decade. Math is hard, but I do believe that’s more than the roughly $400 billion (not $500 billion) in Medicare savings projected for the Democratic health bills.
What I’m talking about here is the “Roadmap for America’s Future,” the budget plan recently released by Representative Paul Ryan, the ranking Republican member of the House Budget Committee. Other leading Republicans have been bobbing and weaving on the official status of this proposal, but it’s pretty clear that Mr. Ryan’s vision does, in fact, represent what the G.O.P. would try to do if it returns to power.
The broad picture that emerges from the “roadmap” is of an economic agenda that hasn’t changed one iota in response to the economic failures of the Bush years. In particular, Mr. Ryan offers a plan for Social Security privatization that is basically identical to the Bush proposals of five years ago.
But what’s really worth noting, given the way the G.O.P. has campaigned against health care reform, is what Mr. Ryan proposes doing with and to Medicare.
In the Ryan proposal, nobody currently under the age of 55 would be covered by Medicare as it now exists. Instead, people would receive vouchers and be told to buy their own insurance. And even this new, privatized version of Medicare would erode over time because the value of these vouchers would almost surely lag ever further behind the actual cost of health insurance. By the time Americans now in their 20s or 30s reached the age of eligibility, there wouldn’t be much of a Medicare program left.
But what about those who already are covered by Medicare, or will enter the program over the next decade? You’re safe, says the roadmap; you’ll still be eligible for traditional Medicare. Except, that is, for the fact that the plan “strengthens the current program with changes such as income-relating drug benefit premiums to ensure long-term sustainability.”
If this sounds like deliberately confusing gobbledygook, that’s because it is. Fortunately, the Congressional Budget Office, which has done an evaluation of the roadmap, offers a translation: “Some higher-income enrollees would pay higher premiums, and some program payments would be reduced.” In short, there would be Medicare cuts.
And it’s possible to back out the size of those cuts from the budget office analysis, which compares the Ryan proposal with a “baseline” representing current policy. As I’ve already said, the total over the next decade comes to about $650 billion — substantially bigger than the Medicare savings in the Democratic bills.
The bottom line, then, is that the crusade against health reform has relied, crucially, on utter hypocrisy: Republicans who hate Medicare, tried to slash Medicare in the past, and still aim to dismantle the program over time, have been scoring political points by denouncing proposals for modest cost savings — savings that are substantially smaller than the spending cuts buried in their own proposals.
And if Democrats don’t get their act together and push the almost-completed reform across the goal line, this breathtaking act of staggering hypocrisy will succeed.
I'm with Paul Krugman all the way in his writings, but....I'm also over 65 and not rich, and I jealously do not want to expand Medicare to those under 65. I wonder if Krugman is younger than 65. I bet he is.
(I feel guilty about what I just wrote. Don't tell anybody.)
Op-Ed Columnist
Republicans and Medicare
comments (277)
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: February 11, 2010
“Don’t cut Medicare. The reform bills passed by the House and Senate cut Medicare by approximately $500 billion. This is wrong.” So declared Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House, in a recent op-ed article written with John Goodman, the president of the National Center for Policy Analysis.
Skip to next paragraph
Times Topics: Medicare
Read All Comments (277) »
And irony died.
Now, Mr. Gingrich was just repeating the current party line. Furious denunciations of any effort to seek cost savings in Medicare — death panels! — have been central to Republican efforts to demonize health reform. What’s amazing, however, is that they’re getting away with it.
Why is this amazing? It’s not just the fact that Republicans are now posing as staunch defenders of a program they have hated ever since the days when Ronald Reagan warned that Medicare would destroy America’s freedom. Nor is it even the fact that, as House speaker, Mr. Gingrich personally tried to ram through deep cuts in Medicare — and, in 1995, went so far as to shut down the federal government in an attempt to bully Bill Clinton into accepting those cuts.
After all, you could explain this about-face by supposing that Republicans have had a change of heart, that they have finally realized just how much good Medicare does. And if you believe that, I’ve got some mortgage-backed securities you might want to buy.
No, what’s truly mind-boggling is this: Even as Republicans denounce modest proposals to rein in Medicare’s rising costs, they are, themselves, seeking to dismantle the whole program. And the process of dismantling would begin with spending cuts of about $650 billion over the next decade. Math is hard, but I do believe that’s more than the roughly $400 billion (not $500 billion) in Medicare savings projected for the Democratic health bills.
What I’m talking about here is the “Roadmap for America’s Future,” the budget plan recently released by Representative Paul Ryan, the ranking Republican member of the House Budget Committee. Other leading Republicans have been bobbing and weaving on the official status of this proposal, but it’s pretty clear that Mr. Ryan’s vision does, in fact, represent what the G.O.P. would try to do if it returns to power.
The broad picture that emerges from the “roadmap” is of an economic agenda that hasn’t changed one iota in response to the economic failures of the Bush years. In particular, Mr. Ryan offers a plan for Social Security privatization that is basically identical to the Bush proposals of five years ago.
But what’s really worth noting, given the way the G.O.P. has campaigned against health care reform, is what Mr. Ryan proposes doing with and to Medicare.
In the Ryan proposal, nobody currently under the age of 55 would be covered by Medicare as it now exists. Instead, people would receive vouchers and be told to buy their own insurance. And even this new, privatized version of Medicare would erode over time because the value of these vouchers would almost surely lag ever further behind the actual cost of health insurance. By the time Americans now in their 20s or 30s reached the age of eligibility, there wouldn’t be much of a Medicare program left.
But what about those who already are covered by Medicare, or will enter the program over the next decade? You’re safe, says the roadmap; you’ll still be eligible for traditional Medicare. Except, that is, for the fact that the plan “strengthens the current program with changes such as income-relating drug benefit premiums to ensure long-term sustainability.”
If this sounds like deliberately confusing gobbledygook, that’s because it is. Fortunately, the Congressional Budget Office, which has done an evaluation of the roadmap, offers a translation: “Some higher-income enrollees would pay higher premiums, and some program payments would be reduced.” In short, there would be Medicare cuts.
And it’s possible to back out the size of those cuts from the budget office analysis, which compares the Ryan proposal with a “baseline” representing current policy. As I’ve already said, the total over the next decade comes to about $650 billion — substantially bigger than the Medicare savings in the Democratic bills.
The bottom line, then, is that the crusade against health reform has relied, crucially, on utter hypocrisy: Republicans who hate Medicare, tried to slash Medicare in the past, and still aim to dismantle the program over time, have been scoring political points by denouncing proposals for modest cost savings — savings that are substantially smaller than the spending cuts buried in their own proposals.
And if Democrats don’t get their act together and push the almost-completed reform across the goal line, this breathtaking act of staggering hypocrisy will succeed.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Krugman -- A Must-Read Today
(c) 2009 F. Bruce Abel
This article by Krugman is important. Why did the government allow AIG to pay off 100 cents on the dollar? What a windfall for the likes of Goldman Sachs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/opinion/20krugman.html?hp
This article by Krugman is important. Why did the government allow AIG to pay off 100 cents on the dollar? What a windfall for the likes of Goldman Sachs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/opinion/20krugman.html?hp
Monday, November 9, 2009
Krugman -- American Ungovernable
(c) 2009 F. Bruce Abel
Today's posting by Paul Krugman about the takeover of the Republican Party by Rush Limbaugh et al, deserves special study. Is America turning Californiaized? And ungovernable during its crisis?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/opinion/09krugman.html
Today's posting by Paul Krugman about the takeover of the Republican Party by Rush Limbaugh et al, deserves special study. Is America turning Californiaized? And ungovernable during its crisis?
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/opinion/09krugman.html
Friday, October 30, 2009
Krugman -- A Must-Read Today
(c) 2009 F. Bruce Abel
Ok, listen up. Krugman says This is It!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/30/opinion/30krugman.html?hp
Ok, listen up. Krugman says This is It!
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/30/opinion/30krugman.html?hp
Friday, October 16, 2009
Apparantly the Insurance lobby Overstepped in its Ads
(c) 2009 F. Bruce Abel
The overstepping in their ads will make the health bill stronger, Krugman says.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/16/opinion/16krugman.html?_r=1
The overstepping in their ads will make the health bill stronger, Krugman says.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/16/opinion/16krugman.html?_r=1
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Krugman -- A Must-Read Today
(c) 2009 F. Bruce Abel
Krugman is "right on" in this article that points out that a falling dollar is good, and inflation is not the enemy, as many regional fed officials say.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/12/opinion/12krugman.html?em
Monday, October 5, 2009
Krugman -- The Politics of Spite
(c) 2009 F. Bruce Abel
Some pithy concepts here.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/opinion/05krugman.html?_r=1&hp
Some pithy concepts here.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/05/opinion/05krugman.html?_r=1&hp
Monday, September 21, 2009
Krugman -- In This Case Populism is Good Politics
He's off health care for a moment. Still good as ever. Limit compensation system on Wall Street before the world of finance collapses, if it hasn't already.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/21/opinion/21krugman.html?_r=1&hp
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/21/opinion/21krugman.html?_r=1&hp
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