Scrivener.net

Monday, August 01, 2005

An irony Paul Krugman will never understand.

Paul Krugman today, giving us one of his typical descriptions of the US government in action ...
the administration is getting nowhere on its grand policy agenda. But it never took policy, as opposed to politics, very seriously anyway. The agenda it has always taken with utmost seriousness - consolidating one-party rule, and rewarding its friends - is moving forward...

These bills don't have anything to do with governing, if governing means trying to achieve actual policy goals ... They're just machine politics at work, favors granted in return for favors received... In fact, you can argue that the administration does a bad job at governing in part because its highest priority is always to reward its friends...

Still, Republicans should feel good. Those legislative successes show that the political machine can still deliver the goods, even at a time when a majority of Americans disapprove...
Paul Krugman quite recently...

Above all, we need to put aside our anti-government prejudices
and ...

Modern American politics is dominated by the doctrine that government is the problem, not the solution ... You don't have to be a liberal to realize that this is wrong-headed.
Get it?

He spends 5 1/2 years relentlessly slanging the government as being inept, dishonest, corrupt, bad ... then tells us that above all, we need to put aside our anti-government prejudices!

That, of course, so we will be willing to ever expand the portion of the economy run by the government through new national health care programs, et. al., (to, for starters, say Krugman's preferred 28% of GDP instead of the current 17%).

Here's a simple irony Paul Krugman will never understand:

Milton Friedman and the small-government types on the right take Paul Krugman's complaints about the character of government much more seriously than Paul Krugman does.

(They take Brad DeLong's complaints more seriously than DeLong does, too.)

That's why they want small government.

Heck, I take Krugman's complaints about government more seriously than Krugman does. Politicians operate by consolidating power, rewarding friends, granting favors for favors received ... Yup, that's what they do! That's why I don't want to give them 11 points more of GDP (65% more) to play with.

But Krugman, while lecturing us ceaselessly about the evils and incompetence of the politicians in Washington, does want to give it to them. Go figure that out.