Deficit Fever

on the deficit, as long as all remedies are on the table, and it is understood that putting them into effect only comes when the economy is stronger. But of course the Republicans will not even talk about long overdue restoration of income taxes to their pre-Bush levels.

Hypocrisy is one of the vital ingredients of politics. Of course, the liberals who berated Bush for running up deficits who now want Obama to spend it on political giveaways to interest groups that favor the democrat party are in the exact same position. There is, in America, only the radical "grow government rapidly" party and the centrist "grow government slightly less rapidly" party. Anybody born after 2000 or so is going to spend their entire adult life as little more than a government serf, as they'll toil for over half the year just to meet their tax burden; that's already the case for many upper middle class people in high tax states.

You assert that "Reporters are all properly cynical about political opportunism, after all." But that assertion hardly seems to comport with the immediately following depiction. Do these cynical reporters really fail to see that the Drudge/Fox/Rush axis is a political one?

Curiously obtuse indeed.

if krugman could simply point to a successful country, which does not have a social system that will eventually bankrupt them, he might have something to work with...

our lottery ticket of a chance stems from 'outgrowth', yet our govt has never failed to increase spending by a larger % than our growth.

were borrowing a trillion a year for the next ten years, in the face of 100 trillion of unfunded obligations, occurring within the next 50 years.

I get it.... now that deficits are the highest ever and Obama wants to QUADRUPLE the debt in 10 years.... Now, deficits don't matter.

Got it.

Obama just proposed a defense budget bigger than ever. He failed to pull out of Iraq (how many re-adjusted promises?). And he has escalated the war in Afghanistan.

The blaming of Bush for war spending now falls in the category of "living in the past".

But of course, re-writing history is a favorite pastime of the left. Fully 3/4 of our elected officials in DC, supported Bush in going to Iraq. The congress passed a bipartisan resolution outlining about 20 reasons justifying the taking out Saddam - NOT JUST WMDs.

These facts, of course, will be purged from the record. The left HATES facts.

And, by the way, large across-the-board tax cuts are the smartest way to stimulate the economy and job growth. Period. But instead, Obama lavished money on endlessly wasteful federal and state agencies so government workers would be immune to the recession. We now have more government (leach) workers than ever!

Really smart! Expand the mostly non-productive public sector (the jobs that cost billions in retirement outlays), while throwing cracker crumbs to the wealth and job creating part of the economy - small business.

"Neither Krugman nor many others talk about ending the wars and/or severely reducing the costs of our military operations."

139k in iraq was going to bankrupt us, but 127k in afghanistan, this year, is a cause for 'hope'?

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if I had the job of defending madoff, I would have been sure to call on krugman as a defense witness.

Actually, the big difference is that Obama's spending skyrocketed at a time when he should have cut back from Bush'sbudgets.

I love to read comments by liberals. You all think in such limited terms. Whatever the NY Times publishes, you guys think.

The reality is that are country went into an economic down turn following the Democrats taking control of Congress in January of 2007. It's no coincidence that the Bush expansion ended a year after the liberals started inflicting their policy agenda on the productive. From proposed new regulations and taxes to across the board wage increases, the liberals running Congress attacked the economy with as much vengeance as they did when destroying the California, Michigan and New York economies.

The liberals declared Bush the lamest of lame ducks when they took Congress, then blamed him when their policies failed. If only John McCain had a brain, and had rebutted Barry O!'s fraudulent campaign rhetoric about the economy, America might not be suffering from the worst president in U.S. history.

So, let's address some of the left wing drivel about how Bush caused the downturn.. One argument is that his tax cuts for the rich caused the problem. Of course, that is a lie because all income levels got cuts. But if Bush's tax cuts caused the down turn, why did the Democrats not repeal them in 2009? Because it would have harmed the economy.

The liberals claim that Bush's two wars that were unpaid for caused the down turn. But, Barry O! has proposed spending an almost equal amount. And, his wars are unpaid for too.

Bush's deficits caused the recession. So, Barry O! has tripled them. Bush's deficits caused a recession, but Obama's will get us out? That only works in bizzaro world.

Bush was reckless in encouraging home mortgage lending. So, the Democrats are proposing to expand the mortgage regulations to include requiring credit unions follow the same guidelines. And, Barry O! has doubled down by lending even more money to defaulted mortagees.

The cold hard truth is that Barry O! has kept or expanded every Bush policy that liberals claimed caused the recession. It's comical. And to make it even funnier, BarryO!'s new budget proposes repealing the Bush tax cuts for the rich, and raising taxes by $1.9 trillion over the next decade, while at the same time doubling the national debt.

If illogic were a tree, Barry O! and the liberals would be redwoods. If government control of the economy and unlimited spending were viable economic theories, the Soviet Union would still exist. But liberals, by all means keep telling yourself that it's all Bush's fault. That seemed to help in Virgina, New Jersey and Massachusetts.

If you don't worry about debt when it crosses 90% of GDP, do you worry when it's at 100%? Or 120%? or 140%? Should we worry when 30% of tax revenue goes to interest on the debts? Or 40%? Or 50%? Or shouldn't we worry because tax revenue will double?

Just because Bush screwed up by overspending, and created huge deficits, does it mean that Obama should now also screw up more, overspend more, and create even bigger deficits? There's no logic in that argument.

A lot of people disliked the GoP because they created a large fiscal mess and huge annual deficits, but now we see, different people, same irresponsible behavior.

Forget about pushing this onto the kids, if we're still working in 5 years, we're paying for this either with higher inflation or with higher taxes.

The real problem is that there's too many government bureaucrats pushing paper in circles. Spendings to raise salaries of government workers don't create any value for us. That's the wrong kind of stimulus spending.

I suspect the political issue with deficits is because they tend to get a lot bigger during economic downturns. Therefore, many people confuse correlation and causation, and think that the government deficits are the *cause* of the economic downturn, rather than a consequence of them.