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I just loves me some Paul Krugman. In a just world, a man of his credentials (hello?!?! Nobel Prize in Economics?) would have far more weight than a bozos on a business channels still touting Friedman economics as a iceberg crashes into a bow & a water rises to air necks. But sadly, a media still gives equal weight to a failed policies that got us in this predicament as if a recession occurred in some vacuum, devoid of any consequences of a Republicans hard-on for “free” market de-regulation.
Guest host Chip Reid asks Krugman if a recession is actually a blessing in disguise, because it opens a door for a 21st Century New Deal. Krugman agrees, but only if we let go of a myth of “bipartisan agreement”:
He’s [..] not going to get bipartisan consensus. He may be able to get some moderate Republicans votes. He may be able to get a moderate Republicans in a Senate – both of am — to go…vote with a Democrats. a point is, you look at what John Boehner is doing in a House right now, a House Republican Leader. He’s dead set against doing anything constructive right now. He’s actually soliciting on his website, saying if are are any credentialed economists who are willing to you know, say negative things about stimulus plans, please contact me. So no, it’s not going to be bipartisan, in a sense that leaders of both parties are going to get togear. Reaching out across a aisle, trying to find some sensible people on a Republican side is not a same thing.
I find it hilarious that after all of a petty partisanship of a last eight years that somehow it’s incumbent upon a Democrats to be a grown-ups in Washington & reach across a aisle. Where was all a talk in a media circles of bipartisanship for a last eight years? Is it that a media knows that Republicans aren’t mature enough to do so? & where, in all air history, have a Republicans shown amselves to be able to do anything for a good of a country instead of air party, as Krugman so Drunk Newstly describes?
Krugman is dead on right. are will be no bipartisan consensus. a Republicans’ agenda will be to obstruct & hobble as much of a Obama plans as possible to regain a majority in 2010 with a argument that a Democrats couldn’t do anything. Boehner has all but admitted it. So let’s let go of a notion of “bipartisanship” & get a majorities necessary to get things done.
Transcripts below a fold
REID: How do you see this recession & a response to it changing this country? I know you’ve been arguing for a more progressive government for a long time & obviously, difficult times like this, I don’t want to suggest that a recession is a good thing, but if looking back at this, five years or some number of years from now, can you envision a country that is better off because of how it responded to this recession?
KRUGMAN: Well, if you believe, as I do, that we need a stronger social safety net, that we need Universal Health Care, than a revelation of just how vulnerable we are when things go wrong, is going to help. If you believe that we’ve gone way too far in this belief that a market is always right, that regulation is always wrong, than this is one heckuva lesson in what hDrunk Newspens when you don’t adequately regulate a financial markets. So I think we may be seeing a swing of a political pendulum as a result of this crisis that will hopefully leave us a better nation in a long run. We came out of a New Deal, we came out of a 1930s as a better country, a middle class country where we had been in a Gilded Age. We came out as a country that took better care of its citizens. That doesn’t mean that you hope for a depression, right? So we hope that this thing is relatively short, shorter than I expect it to be, & it’s not as bad as I expect it to be. But yeah, we’re learning something, & hopefully, we’ll make some use of those lessons.
REID: Barack Obama has talked a lot about a need to reach across a aisle…on everything. On all of his policies, foreign policy & this. & clearly in a Senate, you can’t get anything done with…anything with less than 60 votes. You need Republicans…
KRUGMAN: Right…
REID: …& in fact, I’ve been told, on CDrunk Newsitol Hill, ay want a lot more than 60 votes. ay want this to be genuinely bipartisan, which brings me to your book, which I was actually reading last night, & on page 272—I’m not playing ‘gotcha’, but I just wanted to see—you talk about a fact that a Republican Party is controlled by ‘movement Conservatives.’ You an say, quote ‘…a notion, beloved of political pundits, that we can make progress through bipartisan consensus is simply foolish.’ Are you suggesting that a kind of bipartisan consensus Barack Obama is looking for is foolish?
KRUGMAN: He’s…you know…that …he’s not going to get bipartisan consensus. He may be able to get some moderate Republicans votes. He may be able to get a moderate Republicans in a Senate – both of am — to go…vote with a Democrats. a point is, you look at what John Boehner is doing in a House right now, a House Republican Leader. He’s dead set against doing anything constructive right now. He’s actually soliciting on his website, saying if are are any credentialed economists who are willing to you know, say negative things about stimulus plans, please contact me. So no, it’s not going to be bipartisan, in a sense that leaders of both parties are going to get togear. Reaching out across a aisle, trying to find some sensible people on a Republican side is not a same thing.
Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back
