The Partisan Deficit

by Ryan Young on November 23, 2009 · 2 comments

in Economy, Politics as Usual, Stimulus to Nowhere

When Republicans are in the White House, Paul Krugman thinks budget deficits are bad. When a Democrat is in the White House, deficits are no problem at all.

Correctly noting in 2005 that the Bush deficits were “comparable to the worst we’ve ever seen in this country,” Krugman worried that investor confidence would wilt under the difficulty of paying back such massive obligations.

Now that President Obama has tripled the Bush deficits, he has a column poo-pooing deficit worriers as “being terrorized by a phantom menace — a threat that exists only in their minds.” Investor confidence will be just fine.

Would he be so sanguine if a Republican president ran up a $1,400,000,000,000 budget deficit in his first year in office? The party in power has nothing to do with whether deficits are good or bad. Deficits are either a problem or they aren’t.

Krugman’s partisanship is regrettable. What’s more regrettable is that it is taken seriously. Such is the tragedy of the partisan mind.

Tagged as: Bush, bush deficits, Obama, obama deficits, partisan, partisan hackery, partisan politics, Paul Krugman

{ 1 comment }

Avitar November 23, 2009 at 4:50 pm: For decades, Republicans served as the tax collectors for the New Deal and the Great Society. That always depended on the Republicans doing the responsible thing while the Democrats spent the wealth of the nation buying votes and entrenching their political machine.
Finally, when the security of the nation was on the line a Republican President, Reagan turned to a higher priority and let the deficit increase while he secured the survival of the nation and rebuilt some of American industry.
The next Republican leader who tried being responsible, Newt Gingrich, was all but crucified by the media. George W. Bush had so many problems on his plate, none of which he sought that his ability to hold the economy upright for as long as he did will go down in history. Finally, The Media Corps got Pelosi and Reid in charge of Congress and not even jet jockey and a brilliant Harvard MBA could save the economy. Worst he had traded jobs for China converting to a peaceful quisi-capilist nation and the country had little surplus left.
Republicans thought that after the Democrats got complete control of Government they would stop and begin to act responsibly for the country. After nearly a year it is clear that the country is being run by people who would find a hippie commune a challenging center of sophistication.