Paul Krugman: Evangelist of Political Salvation

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Paul Krugman: Evangelist of Political Salvation

I want to stress this fact: he is as sound a political analyst as he is a sound economist.

The obvious silliness of all this should be apparent to anybody who knows about bipartisan American politics since approximately 1953. There has been a bipartisan American foreign policy. There has certainly been a bipartisan policy with respect to Social Security and Medicare. There has been a bipartisan policy with respect to the federal deficit. On anything that has mattered, bipartisan politics has been dominant. On peripheral issues, such as ObamaCare, Congress has voted along party lines, but even that division was short-lived. There were sufficient numbers of Republicans in the Senate who voted with the Democrats this year to save ObamaCare. The Republicans' 100% opposition was political posturing in 2010.

Bipartisanship is why I don't worry much about the looming triumph of the Democrats in the election of 2020. They will no doubt raise taxes marginally in 2021. They will unquestionably run massive deficits. But the government already runs massive deficits. Congress will extend unemployment insurance to millions of unemployed Americans who lose their jobs in the recession. But there will be no fundamental economic changes. The unfunded liabilities of Medicare and Social Security will increase, just as they will this year. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
-Gary North

Read on:
https://www.garynorth.com/public/17550.cfm