Flim-Flam Fever - by Paul Krugman: "are they willing to concede, at long last, that he’s a clown?" [View all]
March 21, 2012, 8:13 AM
Flim-Flam Fever
Way back in 2010 I declared that Paul Ryan who was rapidly becoming the darling of the fiscal responsibility crowd was a fraud, a flim-flam man. Very Serious People were very seriously annoyed theyd anointed him, and they didnt want to hear anything negative. They even gave him a Fiscy, an award for fiscal responsibility.
So I wonder: are they willing to concede, at long last, that hes a clown?
His latest budget proposal has received some harsh critiques. It calls for huge tax cuts, supposedly offset by closing loopholes and ending tax expenditures except that in a long report he fails to name a single tax expenditure that he would cut. It assumes drastic cuts in discretionary spending, basically eliminating everything except defense. And over the medium term, of course, its a plan to savage the poor while giving big tax breaks to the rich.
So actually two questions: are people finally willing to concede that Ryan is not now and has never been remotely serious? And I know this is probably far too much to ask are they going to do a bit of soul-searching over how they got snookered by this obvious charlatan?
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/21/flim-flam-fever/