Are attacks on the Romney/Ryan budget fair?
Leftists have been attacking the Romney/Ryan budget plan from the moment Paul Ryan was chosen as Mitt Romney's running mate. But some of their critiques could easily apply to Democrats.
Republican vice presidential candidate,Paul Ryan speaks during a campaign event at East Carolina University, Monday, Sept. 3, 2012, in Greenville, N.C.
Mary Altaffer/AP
Ever since Paul Ryan was named vice president, he has been relentlessly attacked by leftists, especially fellow Paul, Krugman. Krugman has attacked Ryan with many arguments, but the one he has most frequently used is that Ryan's assertion that he is a deficit hawk is a lie as his specified tax cuts and military spending increases far exceeds his specified cuts in non-military spending.
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Krugman has also recently pointed to how Mitt Romney is inconsistent as he claims that military government spending is good for the economy while non-military government spending is bad.
I actually mostly agree with Krugman on these points. Based on previous Republican presidents we know that they don't cut non-military spending enough (or even cut it at all, in the case of George W. Bush) to finance their tax cuts and military spending increases, and given the fact that they refuse to specify most of their proposed spending cuts, and also refuses to specify what loopholes in the tax system they want to close, it seems likely that a Romney-Ryan administration wouldn't be different and that the deficit would increase.
I have also made the same point about the inconsistency regarding the effects of government spending from some Republicans.
What Krugman leaves out is that some Democrats are simililarly inconsistent on the issue of government spending. And even more interestingly, Krugman himself is inconsistent when he uses the likely increase in the deficit that Republicans would bring as an argument against them. After all, Krugman has for the last few years repeatedly argued that what America desperately need is a bigger deficit. So given the fact that Krugman argues that Romney-Ryan would increase the deficit and given the fact that he also argues that a bigger deficit would strengthen the economy, it follows that Krugman without realizing it in effect argues that Romney-Ryan is better for the economy than Obama-Biden.
The Christian Science Monitor has assembled a diverse group of the best economy-related bloggers out there. Our guest bloggers are not employed or directed by the Monitor and the views expressed are the bloggers' own, as is responsibility for the content of their blogs. To contact us about a blogger, click here. This post originally ran on stefanmikarlsson.blogspot.com.
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