Krugman calls out Lamar Alexander on "Revisionist History" regarding Reconciliation (& * Tax Cuts)

[mod mom]

February 28, 2010, 3:40 PM
Revisionist History
So, on the This Week panel today I didn’t get a chance to weigh in on the biggest whopper from Sen. Lamar Alexander, who told Elizabeth Vargas that reconciliation — I don’t have the exact transcript — had in the past been used for small things and “to reduce the deficit”.

In fact, reconciliation was used to pass the two major Bush tax cuts, whichincreased the deficit — by $1.8 trillion.

And there’s no penalty for this kind of deception.

Update: Brad DeLong has the transcript, including my final lament.

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/revisionist-history/


Transcript here:

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2010/02/paul-krugman-in-hell-why-oh-why-cant-we-have-a-better-press-corps.html



WILL: By the millions. Now -- second, now, Paul says that, in fact, the Republicans have no ideas. They do, cross-selling across state lines, tort reforms, all those. Just a second, Paul. Then you say they're telling whoppers. That was your view about Lamar Alexander when he said, for millions of Americans, premiums will go up. You said in the next sentence in your column, I guess you could say he wasn't technically lying, because the Congressional Budget Office says that's true.

KRUGMAN: No, it's not what it says.... Can I explain? This is...

WILL: Wait. Let me -- let me set the predicate here, because you then go on and say the Senate does say the average premiums would go up, but people would be getting better premiums.

KRUGMAN: Look, let me explain what happens, because you actually have to read the CBO report.... he CBO report tells you... that... what the bill will do is bring a lot of people who are uninsured, who are currently young and therefore relatively low cost, into the risk pool, which will actually bring premiums down a little bit. It will also... lead a lot of people to get better insurance... people who are currently underinsured, who have insurance policies that are paper thin and don't actually protect you in a crisis, will... get... full coverage. That makes the average payments go up, but it does not mean that people who currently have good coverage under their policies will pay more.... hey'll end up paying a little bit less.

-snip

KRUGMAN: ...that in 2001 the Senate parliamentarian was in doubt about... things Republicans were doing through reconciliation, and they dealt with that by firing him and replacing him.

( hard to snippet-worth a full read)

[asjr]

1. That pompous ass George Will makes

me want to barf every time I see or hear him.

[hedgehog]

2. I took a few minutes to do some figuring regarding the US Senate.

I gave each Senator a number equal to his/her state population. If you add up all the people the Republicans represent, and all the people the Democrats represent, the split is 38%/62%. In other words, if Senate votes were weighted to represent actual state populations, the Democrats would have their super-majority.

It's a meaningless number in real life, but as an argument outweighs any complaints about the use of reconciliation, IMO.

[zipplewrath]

4. Yup, the bicameral legislature system is killin' us

As much as I support the bicameral legislature, the system that gives each state 2 votes in the senate is killing us. It not only empowers a minority, but the reality is that the minority it tends to empower is the most rural. The disparity between the Representation of California and Rhode Island is bad enough, but there are 4 or 5 states representing something like 40% of the population and they control about 10% of the votes.

[hedgehog]

6. It would be intersting to see how population represented

is split between Blue Dogs and progressive Democrats.

[mod mom]

5. excellent point.

[high density]

3. Kent Conrad had the same talking point on Face the Nation

And the tax cuts immediately came to my mind.