Krugman: A Tale Of Two SOTUs

[depakid]

In 1982 Ronald Reagan gave his first State of the Union address. His approval rating was about the same as Barack Obama’s now. His economic track record was considerably worse: instead of presiding over the end of a recession, he had presided over the beginning of one, and the economy was in free fall. Nonetheless, Reagan mounted an unapologetic defense of his economic ideology, combined with a harsh critique of his precedecessors.

We haven’t heard Obama’s SOTU yet. But the big news seems to be the spending freeze. What I hear from bat-squeaks is that it’s not a big deal on economic substance, and that admin officials hope it will clear the way for some modest job-creation efforts. We’ll see about that. Rhetorically, however, Obama is clearly, conspicuously endorsing his opponents’ world-view — which will buy him precisely nothing in return.

More: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/

I hope Krugman's wrong about that, but up til now Obama has shown little inclination to challenge and decry the failed ideology of Reaganism- nor its proponents in either political party.

[Chulanowa]

1. Krugman is wrong about that

The White House has already clarified.

But it's more fun to run around like your head's on fire, I suppose.

[depakid]

2. We shall see

And you might speak for yourself about whose head's on fire- some of us simply look at the record and draw conclusions based on what we've objectively observed.

In Krugman's case, he made a similar observation about Obama and Reaganism two years ago, here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/21/opinion/21krugman.html

[zipplewrath]

4. Clarified or backpeddled?

I read a couple of "clarifications" and it reads an awful lot like Clinton's "triangulation". They're gonna do freezes, but not of anything important, and only in a total sense of a particular department, but they'll still move money around, unless the program is related to TARP, or stimulus, or defense, or jobs.....

I think what they are really trying to sell is "pay go" which was fairly successful under Clinton. There seems to be some "re-inventing government" buried in there too (Al Gore's initiative). But they have this fascination with rewording things to sound like GOP proposals. It isn't working. The GOP has no memory of their own proposals, otherwise they'd recognize the HCR as basically what they proposed in '93 as a response to "Hillary Care".

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

5. What "that" is he wrong about?

[geek tragedy]

3. Obama will run CIRCLES around Reagan

He'll imitate the impotence of Jimmy Carter AND the DLCism of Bill Clinton.