What’s that you say? The GOP doesn’t debate policy matters in good faith and place partisanship and ideology above the good of the nation? Oh noes! Say it ain’t so Paul:
Paul Krugman – Bad Faith Economics – NYTimes.com.
As the debate over President Obama’s economic stimulus plan gets under way, one thing is certain: many of the plan’s opponents aren’t arguing in good faith. Conservatives really, really don’t want to see a second New Deal, and they certainly don’t want to see government activism vindicated. So they are reaching for any stick they can find with which to beat proposals for increased government spending.
Read the whole thing and arm yourself with the tools to beat back the rising tide of stupid from the GOP and it’s mouthpieces from a Nobel laureate. Here’s bit of oush back against the idea that tax cuts will fix everything:
The point is that nobody really believes that a dollar of tax cuts is always better than a dollar of public spending. Meanwhile, it’s clear that when it comes to economic stimulus, public spending provides much more bang for the buck than tax cuts — and therefore costs less per job created (see the previous fraudulent argument) — because a large fraction of any tax cut will simply be saved.
This suggests that public spending rather than tax cuts should be the core of any stimulus plan. But rather than accept that implication, conservatives take refuge in a nonsensical argument against public spending in general.
