The number of Americans on food stamps, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), is at historic highs, but some on the left—like Paul Krugman—think that’s not such a bad thing because, as they argue, food stamps “stimulate” the economy: We desperately needed (and still need) public policies to promote …
Since California released its health care exchange premium rates late last week, liberals such as Paul Krugman have argued that Obamacare’s predicted “rate shock” will fail to materialize next year. At least three reasons explain why liberals’ argument falls short: 1. Dubious Assumptions About Exchange Enrollment Some independent observers questioned …
On their respective blogs, economists Mike Konczal and Paul Krugman criticize the widely cited finding that a nation’s debt above 90 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) slows economic growth. They presume that the limitations of one study by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff mean that its warning can …
A not-so-small cottage industry has grown up refuting liberal economist Paul Krugman’s public pronouncements. It’s not a hard industry to join, and there’s plenty of work, but it can be repetitive. Even so, Krugman’s recent writings opposing federal spending cuts for the sake of the economy are sufficiently troubling to …
According to Friday’s Washington Post, the Administration is considering a new, short-term tax cut. Should conservatives cheer? As a matter of principle, there are at least two reasons to dislike taxes and to applaud tax cuts. First, taxes take money away from those who made the money in the first …
Niall Ferguson poked a hornet’s nest Sunday with his Newsweek cover story, in large part for its claim that Obamacare would increase the budget deficit. “Anyone who actually read, or even skimmed, the CBO [Congressional Budget Office] report knows that it found that [Obamacare] would reduce, not increase, the deficit,” …
Ezra Klein, Mark Thoma, and Paul Krugman take issue with David Brooks for suggesting that the failure in recent years to keep budget deficits under control represents a moral issue. “Every generation has an incentive to spend on itself,” Brooks writes, “but none ran up huge deficits until the current …
Some prominent left-wing commentators have devoted weekly columns and blogs to the notion that Great Britain has misguidedly pursued harsh spending “austerity” and that doing so has left the country lingering in unnecessary anguish. In the opinion pages of The New York Times, Paul Krugman inveighs that: Britain, in particular, …
Proponents of government spending are fond of citing 1937 as an example of when government implemented sharp austerity, and the economy derailed. This argument is dead wrong. On Thursday, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman argued that fiscal austerity right now would make our economic crisis worse. “Even if we manage to avoid immediate catastrophe, the …
