Notable Nobel laureate, economist, and NYT columnist shows that he’s drank plenty of the Obama Kool-Aid… Bush deficits, baaaaad:
Krugman, in a November 2004 interview, criticized the “enormous” Bush deficit. “We have a world-class budget deficit,” he said, “not just as in absolute terms, of course — it’s the biggest budget deficit in the history of the world — but it’s a budget deficit that, as a share of GDP, is right up there.”
The numbers? The deficit in fiscal year 2004 — $413 billion, 3.5 percent of the gross domestic product.
How about the deficit under President Obama? Obama deficits, goooooood:
The numbers: projected deficit for fiscal year 2010 — over $1.5 trillion, more than 10 percent of GDP.
This sets a post-WWII record in both absolute numbers and as a percentage of GDP. And if the Obama administration’s optimistic projections of the economic growth fall short, things will get much worse. So what does Krugman say now?
We must guard against “deficit hysteria.” In “Fiscal Scare Tactics,” his recent column, Krugman writes: “These days it’s hard to pick up a newspaper or turn on a news program without encountering stern warnings about the federal budget deficit. The deficit threatens economic recovery, we’re told; it puts American economic stability at risk; it will undermine our influence in the world. These claims generally aren’t stated as opinions, as views held by some analysts but disputed by others. Instead, they’re reported as if they were facts, plain and simple.”
He continues, “And fear-mongering on the deficit may end up doing as much harm as the fear-mongering on weapons of mass destruction.” Krugman believes Bush lied us into the Iraq War. Just as people unreasonably feared Saddam Hussein, they now have an unwarranted fear of today’s deficit.
I nominate Paul Krugman as the next Treasury Secretary.
