Krugman: Economic Proposals Only Considered 'Serious' if They Inflict Pain on Vulnerable People
It seems Paul Krugman is about as tired as I am of these talking heads and politicians who seem to be obsessed with inflicting pain on the working class. Republicans aren't going to be happy until they undo every New Deal program, destroy our social safety nets and destroy what's left of the dwindling middle class in America.
The PBS Newshour had Paul Krugman on this Tuesday evening to counter some of Erskine Bowles deficit fetishism from the previous night and all I can say is I hope the Democrats are listening to him. We don't have a deficit crisis. We've got a jobs crisis and what Republicans are proposing will just make that worse: Paul Krugman: Hasty Fiscal Fix to the Deficit Would Cause 'Austerity Bomb':
GWEN IFILL: Erskine Bowles may be one of the people you have written about in the past who you called deficit scolds who were touting a phantom menace known as the fiscal cliff.
PAUL KRUGMAN,PrincetonUniversity: Yes.
GWEN IFILL: Am I right about that?
PAUL KRUGMAN: Fiscal cliff is not a phantom menace. The deficit right now is, the notion that something terrible will happen if we don't deal with the deficit right away.
The fiscal cliff is a very different story. That's about reducing the deficit too fast.
GWEN IFILL: In fact, you call it an austerity bomb. Describe that, what you mean by that.
PAUL KRUGMAN: Yes.
Well, what's happening is that we are scheduled, unless something is done, basically to do to ourselves gratuitously what has been happening to some of the European economies.
We're going to have substantial spending cuts, substantial tax increases at a time when the economy is still very weak. And, of course, that's a recipe for sliding back into recession.
So, we set ourselves up with the land mine in the road in front of our economy, which is not based on anything real. It's just based on our political mess.
