Krugman finally gets it right — The Republicans as crisis-creators

I don't mean Krugman finally "gets it right" about economics; he's done that many times over. Paul Krugman finally calls the Republican playbook correctly, in terms of its real goals.

It's one thing to say the talk doesn't match the walk, something he's been saying a lot lately. It's another to say why — and make sense. In the Friday column he says why, and makes sense. Finally.

First, Krugman on the problem — the Republicans want policies that will increase the deficit:

For a while, leading Republicans posed as stern foes of federal red ink. Two weeks ago, in the official G.O.P. response to President Obama’s weekly radio address, Senator Saxby Chambliss devoted his entire time to the evils of government debt, “one of the most dangerous threats confronting America today.” . . .

But this past Monday Jon Kyl of Arizona, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, was asked the obvious question: if deficits are so worrisome, what about the budgetary cost of extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, which the Obama administration wants to let expire but Republicans want to make permanent? What should replace $650 billion or more in lost revenue over the next decade?

His answer was breathtaking: “You do need to offset the cost of increased spending. And that’s what Republicans object to. But you should never have to offset the cost of a deliberate decision to reduce tax rates on Americans.” So $30 billion in aid to the unemployed is unaffordable, but 20 times that much in tax cuts for the rich doesn’t count. [my emphasis]

Then the false why — innocent but wrong-headed belief in voodoo economics, despite the potential for crisis:

But we’re talking about voodoo economics here, so perhaps it’s not surprising that belief in the magical powers of tax cuts is a zombie doctrine: no matter how many times you kill it with facts, it just keeps coming back. And despite repeated failure in practice, it is, more than ever, the official view of the G.O.P.

Now the real why — the crisis is the plan:

Of course, flirting with crisis is arguably part of the plan. There has always been a sense in which voodoo economics was a cover story for the real doctrine, which was “starve the beast”: slash revenue with tax cuts, then demand spending cuts to close the resulting budget gap. The point is that starve the beast basically amounts to deliberately creating a fiscal crisis, in the belief that the crisis can be used to push through unpopular policies, like dismantling Social Security.

Let's linger here — Krugman is finally saying that the Republicans are deliberately creating a fiscal crisis to push through unpopular policies.

The crisis is the plan.

Rule #2 — Be clear-eyed to the point of madness; this is not your daddy's conservative movement. Thank you, Professor, for finally saying the whole truth — and perhaps for reading your own book.

GP