A.J. DiCintio
A modest proposal re Paul Krugman
By A.J. DiCintio
After he was elected in 2000, closet neo-con George Bush and his inkless veto pen sat in the Oval Office for eight years, presiding over a national debt that grew from 5.7 to $10.6 trillion, an increase of 85% while GDP grew by 46%.
But Bush needed help in his effort to transform an America that had been living at least somewhat in accordance with George Washington's brilliant advice that counsels, "As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit," into a sickly, indebted beggar forced to grovel before dollar-flush China.
He got that help in 2006, when Democrats took control of Congress and incorrigible San Francisco liberal Nancy Pelosi made this deceitful promise:
After years of historic deficits, this 110th Congress will commit itself to a higher standard: Pay as you go, no new deficit spending. . . Our new America will provide unlimited opportunity for future generations, not burden them with mountains of debt.
Contemptibly deceitful, actually; for during the nearly four years Pelosi has served as Speaker of the House of Representatives — wherein, according to the Constitution, "All bills for raising Revenue shall originate" — the national debt has increased by $5 trillion or 58%.
By 2008, the American people were becoming increasingly sick of and sickened by the nation's economic policies and its burgeoning debt.
Incredibly, however, Bush's fiscal legacy would receive a stunningly ironic boost from Barack Obama, the million times self-proclaimed anti-Bush agent of "change."
Of course, the boost had to wait until the president-elect assumed office, because only then could the Chicago Machine trained community organizer turned politician safely make it clear he believed that although his predecessor had made admirable progress in achieving the Obama vision for "remaking America," he didn't spend and borrow nearly enough.
So it is that in less than two years, Obama has put the national debt on a $12 trillion course that has it increasing, by 2016, to a total of $22.6 trillion, a sum that will skyrocket the debt/GDP ratio to a guaranteed nation-destroying 140%.
Now, at least twice a week in the midst of this shameless orgy of culture-destroying "generational theft" we are subjected to the harangues of Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman, who is, at home and abroad (as we shall soon see), Number One on many a person's list of candidates deserving the title "America's Most Insufferable Liberal."
Specifically, the nation's best known debtsmith makes his appearances astride a swayback named New York Times, hysterically screaming The deficit hawks are coming! The deficit hawks are coming! as his tottering nag dutifully follows worn, familiar paths that pass by lavish salons where sickeningly effete but eternally pretentious liberals "come and go talking of Michelangelo."
In fact, the professor of economics at Princeton (Ay, there likely's the rub) is so deeply devoted to Keynesian pump-priming as a cure for everything from unemployment to the feverish sneezing, blowing, and hacking caused by the accursed rhinovirus that he recently devoted a column to condemning the very serious cost cutting being done by the coalition government headed by the UK's David Cameron.
Happily, Jeremy Warner (Britain's Telegraph) found that act of professorial chutzpah so amazingly dunderheaded and crudely insulting he was moved to remind the world's citizens (especially American neo-cons) of the following truth:
The big point missed by those who think elevated public debt doesn't matter is that these periods of excessive debt [caused by a series of interminable wars] utterly crippled the UK economy. Indeed, Britain's decline through the twentieth century as an economic superpower directly correlates with increased indebtedness. Fighting wars is not good for economic health.
Then, understanding that Devastation doesn't distinguish between indebtedness brought on by incessant warfare or arrogant, adventuristic social engineering schemes that obsessively envision new improvements for the Nanny State, Warner goes on to issue the following plea to the entire globe:
Will someone please shut Krugman up.
Fortunately for Mr. Warner, I've been thinking about a modest proposal to do exactly that.
It's this simple:
Given that the professor argued ferociously for "stimulus" spending in the amount of $1.3 trillion instead of $800 billion, let's give him the $500 billion porkish difference to spread around in the holy liberal name of spreading the wealth — but with the absolute proviso that he never again open his mouth even to peep for a Keynesian penny of other people's money.
Without question, that expenditure will amount to the best $500 billion our nation has ever spent; for it will inevitably cause exclamations of "shut up!" to be directed at every prodigal wastrel who traffics in tax revenue and public debt — especially those among the contemptible mob of gangsters ironically titled "Honorable Members of Congress" — and therefore ultimately save the American people a sum valued in the tens of trillions.
Not that such a wonderful contribution to the nation's fiscal and social health ought to diminish the profound significance of shutting up Paul Krugman, the value of which is, as a certain television ad likes to say, "priceless."
© A.J. DiCintio
October 31, 2010
After he was elected in 2000, closet neo-con George Bush and his inkless veto pen sat in the Oval Office for eight years, presiding over a national debt that grew from 5.7 to $10.6 trillion, an increase of 85% while GDP grew by 46%.
But Bush needed help in his effort to transform an America that had been living at least somewhat in accordance with George Washington's brilliant advice that counsels, "As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit," into a sickly, indebted beggar forced to grovel before dollar-flush China.
He got that help in 2006, when Democrats took control of Congress and incorrigible San Francisco liberal Nancy Pelosi made this deceitful promise:
After years of historic deficits, this 110th Congress will commit itself to a higher standard: Pay as you go, no new deficit spending. . . Our new America will provide unlimited opportunity for future generations, not burden them with mountains of debt.
Contemptibly deceitful, actually; for during the nearly four years Pelosi has served as Speaker of the House of Representatives — wherein, according to the Constitution, "All bills for raising Revenue shall originate" — the national debt has increased by $5 trillion or 58%.
By 2008, the American people were becoming increasingly sick of and sickened by the nation's economic policies and its burgeoning debt.
Incredibly, however, Bush's fiscal legacy would receive a stunningly ironic boost from Barack Obama, the million times self-proclaimed anti-Bush agent of "change."
Of course, the boost had to wait until the president-elect assumed office, because only then could the Chicago Machine trained community organizer turned politician safely make it clear he believed that although his predecessor had made admirable progress in achieving the Obama vision for "remaking America," he didn't spend and borrow nearly enough.
So it is that in less than two years, Obama has put the national debt on a $12 trillion course that has it increasing, by 2016, to a total of $22.6 trillion, a sum that will skyrocket the debt/GDP ratio to a guaranteed nation-destroying 140%.
Now, at least twice a week in the midst of this shameless orgy of culture-destroying "generational theft" we are subjected to the harangues of Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman, who is, at home and abroad (as we shall soon see), Number One on many a person's list of candidates deserving the title "America's Most Insufferable Liberal."
Specifically, the nation's best known debtsmith makes his appearances astride a swayback named New York Times, hysterically screaming The deficit hawks are coming! The deficit hawks are coming! as his tottering nag dutifully follows worn, familiar paths that pass by lavish salons where sickeningly effete but eternally pretentious liberals "come and go talking of Michelangelo."
In fact, the professor of economics at Princeton (Ay, there likely's the rub) is so deeply devoted to Keynesian pump-priming as a cure for everything from unemployment to the feverish sneezing, blowing, and hacking caused by the accursed rhinovirus that he recently devoted a column to condemning the very serious cost cutting being done by the coalition government headed by the UK's David Cameron.
Happily, Jeremy Warner (Britain's Telegraph) found that act of professorial chutzpah so amazingly dunderheaded and crudely insulting he was moved to remind the world's citizens (especially American neo-cons) of the following truth:
The big point missed by those who think elevated public debt doesn't matter is that these periods of excessive debt [caused by a series of interminable wars] utterly crippled the UK economy. Indeed, Britain's decline through the twentieth century as an economic superpower directly correlates with increased indebtedness. Fighting wars is not good for economic health.
Then, understanding that Devastation doesn't distinguish between indebtedness brought on by incessant warfare or arrogant, adventuristic social engineering schemes that obsessively envision new improvements for the Nanny State, Warner goes on to issue the following plea to the entire globe:
Will someone please shut Krugman up.
Fortunately for Mr. Warner, I've been thinking about a modest proposal to do exactly that.
It's this simple:
Given that the professor argued ferociously for "stimulus" spending in the amount of $1.3 trillion instead of $800 billion, let's give him the $500 billion porkish difference to spread around in the holy liberal name of spreading the wealth — but with the absolute proviso that he never again open his mouth even to peep for a Keynesian penny of other people's money.
Without question, that expenditure will amount to the best $500 billion our nation has ever spent; for it will inevitably cause exclamations of "shut up!" to be directed at every prodigal wastrel who traffics in tax revenue and public debt — especially those among the contemptible mob of gangsters ironically titled "Honorable Members of Congress" — and therefore ultimately save the American people a sum valued in the tens of trillions.
Not that such a wonderful contribution to the nation's fiscal and social health ought to diminish the profound significance of shutting up Paul Krugman, the value of which is, as a certain television ad likes to say, "priceless."
© A.J. DiCintio
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