{"id":3103,"date":"2010-01-29T19:18:52","date_gmt":"2010-01-30T00:18:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/?p=3103"},"modified":"2010-01-29T19:18:52","modified_gmt":"2010-01-30T00:18:52","slug":"krugman-march-of-the-peacocks-dysfunction-junction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/2010\/01\/29\/krugman-march-of-the-peacocks-dysfunction-junction\/","title":{"rendered":"Krugman-March of the Peacocks (Dysfunction Junction)"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the 29 January 2010 NYT, Paul Krugman writes in March of the Peacocks<\/a> about the dysfunction of our current political state.<\/p>\n

The nature of America\u2019s troubles is easy to state. We\u2019re in the aftermath of a severe financial crisis, which has led to mass job destruction. The only thing that\u2019s keeping us from sliding into a second Great Depression is deficit spending. And right now we need more of that deficit spending because millions of American lives are being blighted by high unemployment, and the government should be doing everything it can to bring unemployment down.<\/p>\n

In the long run, however, even the U.S. government has to pay its way. And the long-run budget outlook was dire even before the recent surge in the deficit, mainly because of inexorably rising health care costs. Looking ahead, we\u2019re going to have to find a way to run smaller, not larger, deficits.<\/p>\n

How can this apparent conflict between short-run needs and long-run responsibilities be resolved? Intellectually, it\u2019s not hard at all. We should combine actions that create jobs now with other actions that will reduce deficits later. And economic officials in the Obama administration understand that logic: for the past year they have been very clear that their vision involves combining fiscal stimulus to help the economy now with health care reform to help the budget later.<\/p>\n

The sad truth, however, is that our political system doesn\u2019t seem capable of doing what\u2019s necessary.<\/p>\n

On jobs, it\u2019s now clear that the Obama stimulus wasn\u2019t nearly big enough. No need now to resolve the question of whether the administration should or could have sought a bigger package early last year. Either way, the point is that the boost from the stimulus will start to fade out in around six months, yet we\u2019re still facing years of mass unemployment. The latest projections from the Congressional Budget Office say that the average unemployment rate next year will be only slightly lower than the current, disastrous, 10 percent.<\/p>\n

Yet there is little sentiment in Congress for any major new job-creation efforts.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, health care reform faces a troubled outlook. Congressional Democrats may yet manage to pass a bill; they\u2019ll be committing political suicide if they don\u2019t. But there\u2019s no question that Republicans were very successful at demonizing the plan. And, crucially, what they demonized most effectively were the cost-control efforts: modest, totally reasonable measures to ensure that Medicare dollars are spent wisely became evil \u201cdeath panels.\u201d<\/p>\n

So if health reform fails, you can forget about any serious effort to rein in rising Medicare costs. And even if it succeeds, many politicians will have learned a hard lesson: you don\u2019t get any credit for doing the fiscally responsible thing. It\u2019s better, for the sake of your career, to just pretend that you\u2019re fiscally responsible \u2014 that is, to be a deficit peacock.<\/p>\n

So we\u2019re paralyzed in the face of mass unemployment and out-of-control health care costs. Don\u2019t blame Mr. Obama. There\u2019s only so much one man can do, even if he sits in the White House. Blame our political culture instead, a culture that rewards hypocrisy and irresponsibility rather than serious efforts to solve America\u2019s problems. And blame the filibuster, under which 41 senators can make the country ungovernable, if they choose \u2014 and they have so chosen.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

-RichardH<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the 29 January 2010 NYT, Paul Krugman writes in March of the Peacocks about the dysfunction of our current political state. The nature of America\u2019s troubles is easy to state. We\u2019re in the aftermath of a severe financial crisis, which has led to mass job destruction. The only thing that\u2019s keeping us from sliding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[167],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3103","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-richardhsposts","7":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3103"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3104,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3103\/revisions\/3104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}