Krugman: Obama, Ryan, and the Shape of the Planet

[ProSense]

Krugman:

Obama, Ryan, and the Shape of the Planet

I’m already hearing some people saying, “Why don’t you subject Obama to the same kind of criticism you leveled at Ryan?’

The answer is, because Obama doesn’t deserve it.

Any budget proposal will have things you don’t find convincing. I’d certainly like to know more about Obama’s proposed elimination of tax loopholes; I’d like to know how we’re going to manage with the low levels of domestic discretionary spending envisioned.

But Obama isn’t proposing to somehow make $3 trillion in tax cuts revenue neutral. He isn’t proposing to shift from Medicare paying 70 percent of bills to vouchers worth only 30 percent. He isn’t claiming that we can shrink government outside the major social insurance programs — but including defense — to Calvin Coolidge levels.

What the complainers want is for me to do “Shape of the earth: views differ” analysis — to pretend that Republican nonsense has an equal and opposite Democratic counterpart. But it’s not true. Obama’s budget proposal really is wonk-tested, in a way Ryan’s never was; trust me, I know the wonks! (And Ryan’s wonks are the people who projected 2.8 percent unemployment, plus higher revenue from tax cuts.)

If you want false equivalences, go somewhere else.

The Budget Speech

Style: I liked the way Obama made a case for government at the beginning. I liked the way he accused Republicans of pessimism, of abandoning a hopeful vision of America. Good that he went after the Ryan plan — and good that he went after the cruelty of that plan. If you ask me, too many percentages. Oh, and whichever speechwriter came up with “win the future” should be sent to count yurts in Outer Mongolia.

Substance: Much better than many of us feared. Hardly any Bowles-Simpson — yay!


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Update: I should probably say, I could live with this as an end result. If this becomes the left pole, and the center is halfway between this and Ryan, then no — better to pursue the zero option of just doing nothing and letting the Bush tax cuts as a whole expire.

Update update: I don’t want to step too much on the administration’s selling point, but progressives upset by the claim that there are three dollars of spending cuts for every dollar of tax increases should be aware that there’s a bit of creative labeling going on. As I understand it, they’re counting both interest savings and reductions in “tax expenditures” — subsidies through the tax code — as spending cuts. It’s a much more balanced plan if you look at the balance between revenue increases and non-interest outlays.

[ProSense]

1. Kick! n/t