‘Deficit hysteria’ is certainly justified at $1.5 TRILLION +/year! It’s obvious that we necessarily have to take on all of the budget items that make up MOST of the budget, i.e. defense and entitlements, and then increase revenues. Math doesn’t lie, it just gets perverted. However, while being much too cavalier on the polemics of massive deficits, Krugman has this part spot on:
And if the hypocrisy is breathtaking — politicians who voted for budget-busting tax cuts posing as apostles of fiscal rectitude, politicians demonizing attempts to rein in Medicare costs one day (death panels!), then denouncing excessive government spending the next —well, what else is new?
The trouble, however, is that it’s apparently hard for many people to tell the difference between cynical posturing and serious economic argument. And that is having tragic consequences.
For the fact is that thanks to deficit hysteria, Washington now has its priorities all wrong: all the talk is about how to shave a few billion dollars off government spending, while there’s hardly any willingness to tackle mass unemployment. Policy is headed in the wrong direction — and millions of Americans will pay the price.
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