As spotted by Noel Sheppard of Newsbusters, some curious sophistry from the Times’ Nobel-prize winning/Enron-advising economist/far left political pundit, who today wrote:
What would real action on health look like? Well, it might include things like giving an independent commission the power to ensure that Medicare only pays for procedures with real medical value; rewarding health care providers for delivering quality care rather than simply paying a fixed sum for every procedure; limiting the tax deductibility of private insurance plans; and so on.And what do these things have in common? They’re all in last year’s health reform bill.
That’s why I say that Mr. Obama gets too little credit. He has done more to rein in long-run deficits than any previous president.
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To which Noel responds:
Really? As ABC’s Jake Tapper noted Monday, the President’s recent budget forecasts $7.2 trillion in added debt over the next ten years, and this assumes economic growth far greater than anyone is predicting including the Congressional Budget Office.
Equally shameful, Krugman was advancing the myth that ObamaCare will reduce the deficit.
Good luck with that idea.
Beyond that, Krugman seems caught in a strange paradox here. This is the economist who in 2010 seemed to call for a New New Deal every other week — to the point where, as we noted earlier today, by the fall of 2010, he wanted to redo World War II. From that logic, isn’t fighting the deficit during an economic slowdown the worst thing the president could have done, when your fiscal worldview is built around the notion of Spend! Spend! Spend!
(Call it the “Louis XV budget,” to coin a phrase.)
Building on his earlier “MFM” sobriquet, Ace has recently taken to referring to the “Make-Believe Media.” But even a children’s storyteller knows that he has to have a pinch of internal logical to keep the suspension of disbelief alive.
Related: At the Tatler, “Video: Geithner admits the Obama budget is unsustainable.”
The Dems are of One Mind.
I’m not sure who was slated this week to have the One Mind they share, but it’s clear it’s not Krugman. Or Obama. Or Pelosi. Or Reid. Or Rice. Or Geithner. Or …
That doesn’t even come remotely close to passing the horselaugh test.
Two years from now Krugman, Obama, and Pelosi will collectively not have enough credit to sustain a Netflix subscription. Major Hassan will find it easier to open a checking account.
If fairness in broadcasting is really important to us, then we should make knowing and intentional lies by broadcasters a felony.
Don’t forget that the absolutely core philosophy of people like Krugman is relativism. They literally do not believe that truth or facts exist, only 6 billion different interpretations of the universe. They can argue the philosophy vociferously and are highly contemptuous of people who don’t see things that way.
It’s a liberating philosophy for greedy criminals like little Paulie because it frees him to say anything he wants to say to maintain his lucrative position as the politburo’s court jester and hollow-cheeked sychophant. Obviously, the man has no shame whatsoever. He probably doesn’t understand the concept of shame.
In many ways, he is simply insane.
“include things like giving an independent commission the power to ensure that Medicare only pays for procedures with real medical value; ”
Death Panels by any other name STINK just the same!
“What would real action on health look like? Well, it might include things like giving an independent commission the power to ensure that Medicare only pays for procedures with real medical value; rewarding health care providers for delivering quality care rather than simply paying a fixed sum for every procedure.”
Yeah, but when private insurers try to do that, Krugman and the rest of the Lefties scream about how they’re only interested in profits. But when Krugman can dream up a Soviet-style top-down government protocol to do the same thing, it becomes an enhancement to life as we know it.
BTW, wasn’t it revealed a while back how Medicare fraud rates were several times higher than private insurers’? Must have something to do with all those independent commissioners there safeguarding the public money or something. Maybe if Medicare were run like a for-profit business, there might be somebody working there who actually gave a s**t about weeding out fraud and controlling costs.
I re-read the headline bleary eyed after a nap. I saw the word “rain”, not “rein”, and thought for once Krugman got it right.