When bipartisanship means surrender
Paul Krugman had an interesting opinion piece in the New York Times last month ("The Bankruptcy Boys," Feb. 22) in which he argued that conservative Republicanism, while virulently opposed to "big government," lacks the courage to grasp the opportunity before it. This, says Krugman, is due to the fact that the big-spending government programs — Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — have, understandably, significant public support. The neocon strategy since the late 1970s has been one of "starving the beast" — pushing popular tax-cuts which create or contribute to a fiscal deficit and then arguing that spending-cuts were required to cure it. Now that "Bush-era tax cuts (and Bush-era unfunded wars)" have created a deficit that will outlive the current recession, the neocons have their opportunity. Indeed, that opportunity was handed to them by President Obama with his call for a bipartisan deficit commission..... MORE Source: The Daily Tribune ALTERNATE URL: http://www.tribune.net.ph/commentary/20100323com5.html |
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