Paul Krugman: "A Party Not Ready to Govern"

[KingOrfeo]

Krugman writes:

But the broader Republican quagmire — the party’s failure so far to make significant progress toward any of its policy promises — isn’t just about Mr. Trump’s inadequacies. The whole party, it turns out, has been faking it for years. Its leaders’ rhetoric was empty; they have no idea how to turn their slogans into actual legislation, because they’ve never bothered to understand how anything important works.

Take the two lead items in the congressional G.O.P.’s agenda: undoing the Affordable Care Act and reforming corporate taxes. In each case Republicans seem utterly shocked to find themselves facing reality.

<snip>

First we had seven — seven! — years during which Republicans kept promising to offer an alternative to Obamacare any day now, but never did. Then came the months after the election, with more promises of details just around the corner.

Now there’s apparently a plan hidden somewhere in the Capitol basement. Why the secrecy? Because the Republicans have belatedly discovered what some of us tried to tell them all along: The only way to maintain coverage for the 20 million people who gained insurance thanks to Obamacare is with a plan that, surprise, looks a lot like Obamacare.

Sure enough, the new plan reportedly does look like a sort of half-baked version of the Affordable Care Act. Politically, it seems to embody the worst of both worlds: It’s enough like Obamacare to infuriate hard-line conservatives, but it weakens key aspects of the law enough to deprive millions of Americans — many of them white working-class voters who backed Donald Trump — of essential health care.

<snip>

Then there’s corporate tax reform — an issue where the plan being advanced by Paul Ryan, the House speaker, is actually not too bad, at least in principle. Even some Democratic-leaning economists support a shift to a “destination-based cash flow tax,” which is best thought of as a sales tax plus a payroll subsidy. (Trust me.)

But Mr. Ryan has failed spectacularly to make his case either to colleagues or to powerful interest groups. Why? As best I can tell, it’s because he himself doesn’t understand the point of the reform.

The case for the cash flow tax is quite technical; among other things, it would remove the incentives the current tax system creates for corporations to load up on debt and to engage in certain kinds of tax avoidance. But that’s not the kind of thing Republicans talk about — if anything, they’re in favor of tax avoidance, hence the Trump proposal to slash funding for the I.R.S.

No, in G.O.P. world, tax ideas always have to be presented as ways to remove the shackles from oppressed job creators. So Mr. Ryan has framed his proposal, basically falsely, as a measure to make American industry more competitive, focusing on the “border tax adjustment” which is part of the sales-tax component of the reform.

 

[contrifan32]

I thought he retired and went the way of the rest of the insignificant liberal urinalists?

 

[KingOrfeo]

I thought he retired and went the way of the rest of the insignificant liberal urinalists?

No, he didn't. He's still running a column in the NYT. Which is not failing, in fact circulation is booming since the election.

 

[contrifan32]

NYT = deck chairs on the Titanic

 

[VaticanAssassin]

Look! Yet another propaganda copy and paste, against forum rules, that contains no original thought by the Queen.

Shocked!!! Shocked I tell you!

 

[KingOrfeo]

Look! Yet another propaganda copy and paste, against forum rules . . .

Excerpts from the article; fair use.

that contains no original thought

Original with Krugman.

 

[OldJourno]

Is this the same Krugman who predicted a stock market collapse after Trump was elected?
The same Krugman who said 9/11 would be good for the economy?

Yeah, this is the guy I'd rely on for logical input on key issues of the day.

 

[RobDownSouth]

Look! Yet another propaganda copy and paste, against forum rules, that contains no original thought by the Queen.

Shocked!!! Shocked I tell you!

When you get up from your fainting couch, why not press the "Report" button to formally register your complaint about the thread?

 

[BotanyBoy]

Krugman writes:

"But the broader Republican quagmire — the party’s failure so far to make significant progress toward any of its policy promises — isn’t just about Mr. Trump’s inadequacies. The whole party, it turns out, has been faking it for years. Its leaders’ rhetoric was empty; they have no idea how to turn their slogans into actual legislation, because they’ve never bothered to understand how anything important works."

That quagmire is destroying both parties at the moment. The corporatist 'establishment', is absolutely floundering on both ends and it's glorious. The Bush (R)'s and Clinton (D)'s are fucked....the people are tired of their bullshit and all hope was lost when Obummer sold the fuck out at every turn just like another Bush/Clinton puppet. That was the last straw for most and if the (R)'s do the same which it looks like they are, just more of the same bullshit instead of results, then it's clearly beyond the US Government to do right by it's citizenry. Let it flail...just don't let up until it stops, Kim Kardashian 2020.

 

[OldJourno]

"But the broader Republican quagmire — the party’s failure so far to make significant progress toward any of its policy promises — isn’t just about Mr. Trump’s inadequacies. The whole party, it turns out, has been faking it for years. Its leaders’ rhetoric was empty; they have no idea how to turn their slogans into actual legislation, because they’ve never bothered to understand how anything important works."

That quagmire is destroying both parties at the moment. The corporatist 'establishment', is absolutely floundering on both ends and it's glorious. The Bush (R)'s and Clinton (D)'s are fucked....the people are tired of their bullshit and all hope was lost when Obummer sold the fuck out at every turn just like another Bush/Clinton puppet. That was the last straw for most and if the (R)'s do the same which it looks like they are, just more of the same bullshit instead of results, then it's clearly beyond the US Government to do right by it's citizenry. Let it flail...just don't let up until it stops, Kim Kardashian 2020.

Botany Boy offers a way more honest assessment than Krugman.
I get a sense that the smug politicians like to say Trump doesn't know how things work in Washington (and neither the process nor the politicians have worked for average Americans and haven't for years), but what's more true is that Trump does know what works and what makes it work outside of D.C.
Last week Pelosi complained that Trump had not yet introduced a jobs bills. She would probably prefer one of those Washington monstrosities that has to include a job training program that will not work, just as the previous 200 haven't.
What she and most of the rest of Washington doesn't understand, or doesn't want to understand, is that much of what they do kills jobs. High taxes, regulations and laws that suck the life out of the economy (Obamacare, for example) are their stock in trade.
There's no point in denying the real plan for the winter and spring of 2017 was for Hillary to ride in to the rescue with a plan to fine tune Obamacare and throw more of your money at it while moving it closer to single payer. That, we would have been told, was why Ocare wasn't working as efficiently as it should.
Now we've got Trump, and the Republicans are doing the tweaking instead of just getting rid of the damn thing and letting 90 percent or so of all Americans take care of their own health care.
You want affordable health care? Get the government the fuck out of it.

 

[SyKoKo]

Paul Krugman Says Markets Will ‘Never’ Recover From Trump; Dow Hits Record High



Same Krugman?

I dunno, asking for a FRIEND

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Look! Yet another propaganda copy and paste, against forum rules, that contains no original thought by the Queen.

Shocked!!! Shocked I tell you!

Excerpts from the article; fair use.



Original with Krugman.

Reported for violating guidelines which limit fair use to five paragraphs.

Now, those of us on the right have repeatedly been edited and banned for this, but you never are.

Laurel's double standard.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Paul Krugman Says Markets Will ‘Never’ Recover From Trump; Dow Hits Record High



Same Krugman?

I dunno, asking for a FRIEND

Yeah, that Krugman. The one who will compromise his integrity and scholarship for pure partisan politics.

 

[KingOrfeo]

That quagmire is destroying both parties at the moment. The corporatist 'establishment', is absolutely floundering on both ends and it's glorious.

The corporationist (not corporatist) establishment controls the WH and Congress and both parties and it is not glorious.

 

[Rightguide]

Krugman is a policy wonk pushing an agenda, not a knowledgeable economist who interprets economic signals with any kind of accuracy.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Krugman is a policy wonk pushing an agenda, not a knowledgeable economist who interprets economic signals with any kind of accuracy.

Paul Krugman holds the Nobel Prize in Economics, and since Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman were awarded the same prize, we can probably dismiss any notion that leftists dominate the committee.

 

[Rightguide]

Paul Krugman holds the Nobel Prize in Economics, and since Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman were awarded the same prize, we can probably dismiss any notion that leftists dominate the committee.

You want to compare earlier Peace Prize recipients with Barack Obama, who got more people killed in Afghanistan than his predecessor?

Nothing you just said refutes what I said. Krugman regularly misinterprets economic signals.

 

[KingOrfeo]

You want to compare earlier Peace Prize recipients with Barack Obama, who got more people killed in Afghanistan than his predecessor?

That prize was really awarded to the American people just for rejecting the Pubs, and we deserved it just for that.

Nothing you just said refutes what I said. Krugman regularly misinterprets economic signals.

None of that invalidates his political views, not even those specifically rooted in economics:

In the early 2000s, Krugman repeatedly criticized the Bush tax cuts, both before and after they were enacted. Krugman argued that the tax cuts enlarged the budget deficit without improving the economy, and that they enriched the wealthy – worsening income distribution in the US.[105][139][140][141][142] Krugman advocated lower interest rates (to promote investment and spending on housing and other durable goods), and increased government spending on infrastructure, military, and unemployment benefits, arguing that these policies would have a larger stimulus effect, and unlike permanent tax cuts, would only temporarily increase the budget deficit.[142][143] In addition, he was against Bush's proposal to privatize social security.[144]

In August 2005, after Alan Greenspan expressed concern over housing markets, Krugman criticized Greenspan's earlier reluctance to regulate the mortgage and related financial markets, arguing that "[he's] like a man who suggests leaving the barn door ajar, and then – after the horse is gone – delivers a lecture on the importance of keeping your animals properly locked up."[145] Krugman has repeatedly expressed his view that Greenspan and Phil Gramm are the two individuals most responsible for causing the subprime crisis. Krugman points to Greenspan and Gramm for the key roles they played in keeping derivatives, financial markets, and investment banks unregulated, and to the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which repealed Great Depression era safeguards that prevented commercial banks, investment banks and insurance companies from merging.[146][147][148][149]

Krugman has also been critical of some of the Obama administration's economic policies. He has criticized the Obama stimulus plan as being too small and inadequate given the size of the economy and the banking rescue plan as misdirected; Krugman wrote in The New York Times: "an overwhelming majority [of the American public] believes that the government is spending too much to help large financial institutions. This suggests that the administration's money-for-nothing financial policy will eventually deplete its political capital."[150] In particular, he considered the Obama administration's actions to prop up the US financial system in 2009 to be impractical and unduly favorable to Wall Street bankers.[124] In anticipation of President Obama's Job Summit in December 2009, Krugman said in a Fresh Dialogues interview, "This jobs summit can't be an empty exercise...he can't come out with a proposal for $10 or $20 Billion of stuff because people will view that as a joke. There has to be a significant job proposal...I have in mind something like $300 Billion."[151]

Krugman has recently criticized China's exchange rate policy, which he believes to be a significant drag on global economic recovery from the Late-2000s recession, and he has advocated a "surcharge" on Chinese imports to the US in response.[152] Jeremy Warner of The Daily Telegraph accused Krugman of advocating a return to self-destructive protectionism.[153]

In April 2010, as the Senate began considering new financial regulations, Krugman argued that the regulations should not only regulate financial innovation, but also tax financial-industry profits and remuneration. He cited a paper by Andrei Shleifer and Robert Vishny released the previous week, which concludes that most innovation was in fact about "providing investors with false substitutes for [traditional] assets like bank deposits," and once investors realize the sheer number of securities that are unsafe a "flight to safety" occurs which necessarily leads to "financial fragility."[154][155]

In his June 28, 2010 column in The New York Times, in light of the recent G-20 Toronto Summit, Krugman criticized world leaders for agreeing to halve deficits by 2013. Krugman claimed that these efforts could lead the global economy into the early stages of a "third depression" and leave "millions of lives blighted by the absence of jobs." He advocated instead the continued stimulus of economies to foster greater growth.[156]

In a 2014 review of Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century he stated we are in a Second Gilded Age.[157]

On all those points, he has been very consistently right.

 

[Rightguide]

That prize was really awarded to the American people just for rejecting the Pubs, and we deserved it just for that.



None of that invalidates his political views, not even those specifically rooted in economics:



On all those points, he has been very consistently right.

Please no more propagandizing for failure, get an economics education from outside of Karls' manifesto.

 

[BotanyBoy]

The corporationist (not corporatist) establishment controls the WH and Congress and both parties and it is not glorious.

They are corporatist KO, that's the reality of the current US government, 90% corporatism...9% bullshit carrot dangling for the masses and occasionally, 1% of the time they wave their dicks at us and laugh.


No it's not glorious, but watching it flail and freak the fuck out is.

 

[BotanyBoy]

That prize was really awarded to the American people just for rejecting the Pubs, and we deserved it just for that.

And look what a fucked up stinker that turned out to be....


Had they waited to give him that prize they would have seen he was just Bush 3.0.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Please no more propagandizing for failure, get an economics education from outside of Karls' manifesto.

This is the best place to get it. This is not.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Paul Krugman holds the Nobel Prize in Economics, and since Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman were awarded the same prize, we can probably dismiss any notion that leftists dominate the committee.

The only difference is that the latter two used their knowledge to save the economies of England and Austria from the Keynes-Krugman school of Economics...


Krugman has done not one significant thing in his entire life other than promote government spending and Socialism.

 

[RobDownSouth]

Krugman has done not one significant thing in his entire life other than promote government spending and Socialism.

Winning the Nobel Prize is insignificant? Hurr Durr!

You're simply envious that your personal hero Von Mises has been relegated to the ash can of history, thoroughly discredited and known only to fringe right-wing crackpots.

 

[FakeNews]

Cenk Uygur: Krugman doesn't know much about economics

Cenk Uygur is the host and co-founder of The Young Turks. He is also co-founder of the Justice Democrats.

Justice Democrats believe...

It’s time to face the facts: the Democratic Party is broken and the corporate, establishment wing of the party is responsible. Republicans now hold most state legislatures, most governorships, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the presidency. It’s time to rebuild the Democratic party from scratch and make it represent the American people.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEcD6At9Ytk