Krugman: GOP Econ. Rhetoric 'Has Bordered on the Deranged'

clipped from www.nytimes.com One might have expected Republicans to act at least slightly chastened in these early days of the Obama administration, given both their drubbing in the last two elections and the economic debacle of the past eight years. But it’s now clear that the party’s commitment to deep voodoo — enforced, in part, by pressure groups that stand ready to run primary challengers against heretics — is as strong as ever. In both the House and the Senate, the vast majority of Republicans rallied behind the idea that the appropriate response to the abject failure of the Bush administration’s tax cuts is more Bush-style tax cuts. And the rhetorical response of conservatives to the stimulus plan — which will, it’s worth bearing in mind, cost substantially less than either the Bush administration’s $2 trillion in tax cuts or the $1 trillion and counting spent in Iraq — has bordered on the deranged.

Not that Obama gets off the hook here. "The Congressional Budget Office, not usually given to hyperbole, predicts that over the next three years there will be a $2.9 trillion gap between what the economy could produce and what it will actually produce," Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman writes. "And $800 billion, while it sounds like a lot of money, isn’t nearly enough to bridge that chasm."

The stimulus as it stands now, writes Krugman, will only "kick the can down the road."

"So far the Obama administration’s response to the economic crisis is all too reminiscent of Japan in the 1990s: a fiscal expansion large enough to avert the worst, but not enough to kick-start recovery; support for the banking system, but a reluctance to force banks to face up to their losses," he tells us. "It’s early days yet, but we’re falling behind the curve."

Obama's going to have to go back to the well and we can probably count on Republicans to be just as "deranged" the next time.