Krugman points out hypocrisy of people who claimed gov't spending "never creates jobs" during stimulus debate now decrying cuts to defense program as job killer
April 12, 2009 11:59 am ET
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"But...but...but defense spending's different! It creates real things that save us from the liberals--oops, I mean commies--no, I mean fascists--no, I take it back--I mean liberals! All that stimulus spending that only builds bridges and schools and keeps jobless peopel from living on the streets doesn't really do anything!"
I've got to stop--this thinking like a conservative is giving me a headache! Much as if my brain was being drained out of my ear... But Krugman nails it as he usually does, far better than I could...
Fortheloveof...A few weeks ago I did the same thing. I was a dark cold place and the only signs I could see read "LOWER TAXES". Please don't go back to that thinking, you may never come back.
Saw George S's show. Krugman put truth on the table and Will nor NOwt the Grinch wanted any part of him. Someone posting on MMFA noted the dual personality of NOwt the Grinch show between Sunday Morning shows and his callous attitude toward everything not Repub on Fox. This man is the real Two-Face.
On topic - Paul Krugman is my hero. He calls the people who don't honor the truth out on their dishonesty on a regular basis. They are hypocrites and we all need to point out hypocrisy.
Slightly off topic - on that same show this morning, George Stephanopolus pointed out a couple of times when commentators gave us just part of the story but not the full information we needed, just like Media Matters often does. I was proud of him too.
Stephanopoulos called George Will on his misleading comment about the supplemental war funding bill that Obama is going to have to do. That's on Bush's budget from last year. It's not Obama's budget. Obama is including the war costs in his budget. It's Bush that didn't do that. It's not a flaw on the part of Obama that he's doing this! Just like it's not a flaw in Eric Holder's DOJ that the Bush DOJ was so flawed. Holder needs to find remedies to that problem, just like Obama needs to pass a bill to fund the war in Iraq.
Krugman also pointed out the flaw in George Will's criticism of Obama's stimulus plan. Will complained that the stimulus was supposed to remove the burden from state govts to raise taxes, but several states are still having to raise taxes. Krugman correctly pointed out that because of moderate Senate Democrat complaints, much of the support for states was removed! It's not Obama's fault that he had to remove the support for the states that is now causing some states to have to raise taxes!
This false cause and effect arguing by those on the right infuriates me.
"...this [defense] budget represents an opportunity... to critically and ruthlessly separate appetites from real requirements"
That almost sounds like something General Eisenhower could have said, in his Farewell Address to us... almost, except for the "ruthless" characterization, which can be taken several ways, none of them good.
Here's a link to the General's Farewell Address, complete with an audio of excellent quality, in addition to a transcript...
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/dwightdeisenhowerfarewell.html
His speech is truly profound. It cannot be overemphasized how important and true were his words to us. I'd note that just before the midpoint of that speech, he moves to tell us his thoughts on what he will famously call "the military-industrial complex."
That point in his speech begins with:
"But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise. Of these, I mention two only."
And in warning us of these two threats, he will arrive at:
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
I wonder just how long a time the General had in mind, when used the word "persist", when he said "the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."
I also would guess, that if the General had found some use for the word "ruthless" in his speech, it would have been there, to describe that "misplaced power": he might have said "misplaced ruthless power" I think.
One of the reasons I knew Lieberman was bad for the for the Democratic party was that he tanked in the 2000 vice presidential debate with Dick Cheney:
LIEBERMAN: Dick Cheney must be one of the few people who think nothing has been accomplished in the last eight years. Promises were made and promises were kept. Has Al Gore -- did Al Gore make promises in 1992? Absolutely. Did he deliver? Big time. Let me put it that way. That's the record. Look at the 20 -- look at the 22 million new jobs. Look at the 4 million new businesses. Look at the lower interest rates, low rate of inflation, high rate of growth. I think if you asked most people in America today that famous question that Ronald Reagan asked, "Are you better off today than you were eight years ago?" Most people would say yes. I'm pleased to see, Dick, from the newspapers that you're better off than you were eight years ago, too.
CHENEY: I can tell you, Joe, the government had absolutely nothing to do with it. (LAUGHTER) (APPLAUSE)
MODERATOR: This question is to you.
LIEBERMAN: I can see my wife and I think she's saying, "I think he should go out into the private sector."
CHENEY: I'll help you do that, Joe.
LIEBERMAN: I think you've done so well there, I want to keep you there. (LAUGHTER)
Of course, Cheney made his private sector money as head of Haliburton, a Brown and Root subsidiary. Brown and Root's business consists largely of obtaining no bid contracts from the federal government. Cheney got the job because of his contacts from his time in the Nixon and Ford administrations, Congress and as Secretary of Defense, which he used to benefit Brown and Root.The notion of Dick Cheney achieveing private sector success that the government had nothing to do with is laughable, and yet Lieberman let him prepetrate that falsehood.
You bet, when not pretending to be Public Servants, Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, and all or most of their family friends and supporters, they all feed at the public trough.
In America, you can work hard and maybe even invent a better mousetrap, and maybe get wealthy as a result... but another option is to deal in political connections, and make bribes and tell lies and blackmail people, and line up at the public trough, and get many millions of dollars and billions of dollars in defense contracts, by way of influence that extends into that central clearing house of defense spending, the Pentagon (which is not to be confused with the U.S. Armed Forces, the vast majority of whom never have any business or ever even visit, the Pentagon).
And in addition to all the blood and loss of life and limb that people like Dick Cheney deal in, in order to siphon off billions of dollars from the public trough, from the U.S Treasury... in addition to all that, they deal in another killer: electricity... as the shoddy hit-and-run electrical work that KBR and Halliburton do in IRAQ, has killed and severely injured more U.S. Troops there, than do lightning strikes kill people worldwide.
Chitty electrical work, and the billions of dollars siphoned from the U.S. Treasury for it, that's Dick Cheney's Halliburton.