Paul Krugman: For entitlement reform before he was against it
Krugman vs. Krugman
Not that you needed any more evidence that New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is a flip-flopping charlatan, but here’s the latest.
Today, he assails GOP proposals to raise the Medicare age and, by extension, the Social Security retirement age. (My column on the subject from earlier this month is here.)
Krugman bludgeons entitlement reform advocates with the class-warfare card, lamenting that “the fervor with which Washington types call for raising eligibility ages is a ‘tell’: it shows how disconnected they are from the way the other half lives (and dies). For in our increasingly polarized society, life expectancy is more and more a class-related issue.” Only elites in society, Krugman writes, like judges and politicians, “think it’s a great idea to raise the Medicare age.”
Funny. In 1996, Krugman had an entirely different view of long-term structural changes to federal entitlements, including raising the age of eligibility. In a lengthy New York Times book review of “How the Coming Social Security Crisis Threatens You, Your Family, and Your Country” by Peter G. Peterson and “America’s Most Powerful Lobby and the Clash of Generations” by Charles R. Morris, Krugman targeted the very kind of short-term politicization of the entitlement/demographic crisis that he now indulges in. Close your eyes, read Krugman’s words circa 1996, and you might think you were listening to Paul Ryan circa 2011:
Generous benefits for the elderly are feasible as long as there are relatively few retirees compared with the number of taxpaying workers — which is the current situation, because the baby boomers swell the workforce. In 2010, however, the boomers will begin to retire. Every year thereafter, for the next quarter-century, several million 65-year-olds will leave the rolls of taxpayers and begin claiming their benefits.
The budgetary effects of this demographic tidal wave are straightforward to compute, but so huge as almost to defy comprehension. Mr. Peterson, the chairman of the Blackstone Group, a private investment bank, informs us that ”the combined Federal cost of Social Security and Medicare, expressed as a share of workers’ taxable payroll, is officially projected to rise from the already burdensome 17 percent in 1995 to between 35 and 55 percent in 2040. And this figure does not include the many other costs — from nursing homes to civil service and military pensions — that are destined to grow along with the age wave.”
But aren’t Social Security and Medicare basically pension funds, in which workers’ contributions are invested to provide for their retirement? Hardly. A private pension fund that planned to pay the benefits these programs promise would be accumulating huge reserves. In fact, the so-called ”trust funds” are making barely any provisions for the future. In another spectacular statistic, Mr. Peterson notes that if Medicare and Social Security had to obey the same rules that apply to private pensions, the reported Federal deficit this year would be not its official $150 billion, but roughly $1.5 trillion.
In short, the Federal Government, however solid its finances may currently appear, is in fact living utterly beyond its means. While the present generation of retirees is doing very nicely, the promises that are being made to those now working cannot be honored.
What did the old Paul Krugman think of Peterson’s proposals to rein in costs and raise the age of eligibility for federal entitlements? He called them “sensible:”
Both Mr. Morris and Mr. Peterson offer plans to avert the crisis ahead. The details differ, and Mr. Peterson’s proposal is more completely fleshed out, but the general thrust is clear: slow the growth in benefit levels, gradually raise the retirement age, impose limits on expensive terminal medical care that prolongs life for only weeks or days and — last but not least — raise taxes moderately now, rather than massively later. We need not dwell on their sensible proposals, however, because there is not the slightest prospect that they will be put into effect — or indeed that we will do anything serious about the looming crisis until it is almost upon us.
Thanks to finger-in-the-wind demagogues like 2011-era Krugman, the obstacles to lasting entitlement and budget reform have grown even more insurmountable than they were 15 years ago when 1996-era Krugman took them seriously.
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Related:
Paul Krugman Prays That No One Will Figure Out How Frequently He Flip-Flops
Paul Krugman’s ‘Breathtaking’ Hypocrisy
An “Alarming” Flip-Flop: Krugman says Social Security is in crisis. Wait — no — he says it’s fine.
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Sister Toldjah
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Paul is nothing more or less than a partisan hack propagandist writing for a propaganda rag in the middle of Jewish guilt heaven. The NY Times would dry up and blow away if it weren’t for all the guilt ridden jews and politicians who pander to them. Why jews feel so guilty for being successful is beyond me, they follow a tried and true formula, small family, extensive education, work hard, save and invest instead of blowing your money. They should be conservatives.
I believe you can take Obama’s statements on any given subject and create a very interesting debate because he has taken both sides of so many of them. I guess this concept is normal to most liberals.
I would expect nothing less from Krugman. No surprises here.
Why does anyone even listen to this cretin. Has he ever been right on anything?
Try to imagine how little I care what this clown says this week.
I wouldn’t trust his financial advice with a piggy bank.
Hey, Krugman, I got a finger in the wind for ya!
they must have a sale on flip flops at macy’s or sak’s.
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Paul Krugman, E.J. Dionne, Charles Blow, Eugene Robinson. American Pravda Media clowns who make Baghdad Bob look like a responsible journalist by comparison!
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When you want to prove that Liberalism really is a mental disorder–read their “news” articles for definitive proof.
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John Bibb
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I second that emotion! I’ll give Krugman a one-fingered salute anytime.
Regards,
Peter H.
Paul Krugman is forever full of himself.
And as far as his economist credentials go, his liberalism guides his opinions. Not the facts.
Krugman writes for the rag, NY Times. That pretty much identifies his level of competency. Enough said!!!
Why does every picture of him look like he’s just been caught doing something embarrassing?
I doubt that many on either side of the political spectrum pay much attention to Krugman. His audience is fellow media types. Hopefully, a dying breed in the near future as the old mainstream media continues to fail.
There is an old saying about how no matter what your point of view is on economics, there is an economist that can prove you are right. But usually they are different economists for each point of view. Krugman seems to be trying to corner the market on ALL points of view. In blood typing, he would be type “O”.
Where is the money that is supposed to be in the Social Security piggy bank?
Successive waves of Congressional raids have plundered the nest egg. Congress makes the Saxons and Norsemen look like street panhandlers and pick-pockets.
Millions of American youth working McJobs and stocking shelves at Home Depot will not be able to sustain the fund.
‘Cause he works at the TIMES. That’s embarassing enough.
I’d rather have a sister in a Tijuana whorehouse than a brother working for the NYT.
Krugman is a lying liar working for the preeminent propaganda organ of the Left.
At least the Saxons and Norsemen were honest about their intentions….
The one and only Paul Krugman, who became an “advisor” to Enron and took a nice pile of money from Enron for doing Lord knows what. What exactly did Krugman do for the Enron money he gladly accepted? Given Krugman’s inflated salary with the NYTimes, Krugman could show his loyalty to the working class and the unemployed by giving his Enron money back to shareholders who lost everything or to Enron employees who lost their jobs at the same time celebrities like Paul Krugman were gladly accepted buckets of Enron money for doing nothing (or in Krugman’s case, next to nothing).
Krugman probably makes more money at Columbia or CUNY than he does at the TIMES anyway.
These people, who are logically challenged, and whom are predisposed to align themselves with whichever ideological position their party of choice stands, are not simply partisan. With closer scrutiny, the problem is evident. They are:
Mentally ill.
The list of Le Floppers Extraodinaire is top-heavy with liberals, especially those in Democrat Party leadership. Some of those can be eventually voted out of office, but Krugman is different. He remains unaccountable for his words.
As long as the venomous snakes in the lame stream media keep hiring him, he’ll keep spewing his confused brand of socialism.
He’s a Nobel Prize winner, so he’s not only “special,” but he can be touted by Democrats as one of those “ecomonists” who agree with them.
Paul Krugman, a professor at Princeton and a columnist for The Times, won the Nobel Prize for Economics for his work on global trade patterns…
That helps explain alot. Yet another socialist who believes in globalism, a la George Soros?
Don’t get me started today on government waste. As many of you know I work for the government (DA Civ) at an Army hospital. With the government being out of our tax dollars to spend what does the heads of the department I work for decide they need to do to check out the new computer software suite (this is something we actually need as the system we are useing dates back to the early 90′s and is falling apart). They have decided to spend more tax dollars on a trip to Hawaii to go see the new software in action at Tripler Army Hospital. These three people will never even use the system and have no idea what the needs of the system should be in the first place.
I suggested as a cost savings measure to remote access to the Tripler so that not only the management, but the staff (i.e. the ones that will use the system) can have some hands on time with it. Needless to say that idea was scoffed at….
Reading just one of their columns was enough for me. Now their pictures, alone, next to the column is enough to remin,d me of their mental disorder. I no longer need to read their tripe.
You’re talking about Krugman right? Or are you referring to some of the obnoxious noseholders who post comments attacking others who don’t agree with them?
Everyone is allowed to change their minds. … if only Mr. Krugman had one.
Hamlet, Act II, scene two
I tuned out liberal sophistry masquerading as argument a long time ago, when I realized that in their minds there’s absolutely nothing that is intrinsically good or bad, but everything depends on who is suggesting it or doing it.
Running a budget deficit was unforgivable during the Bush administration, but is an “investment in our future” today.
The filibuster was a “cherished institution” four or five years ago, but is an irksome anachronism today.
Engaging in a voluntary war in the Middle East against a nation that hadn’t attacked us was obscene in 2003, but is okay today.
Halliburton-style “crony capitalism” was bad, but GE-style crony capitalism today is unremarkable.
And of course, now there’s Krugman alternately promoting or condemning entitlement reform, depending upon who’s running the show in DC.
There’s no way to have a rational debate with such people, because depending entirely upon their expedient needs of the moment what was sacred yesterday is profane today and vice-versa – and there’s no way to pin them down to any sort of consistency even by pointing out their inconsistencies, because they’re incapable of embarrassment or shame.
As far as dealing with the left is concerned, the time for any kind of negotiation or even civil conversation passed long, long ago. They simply have to be fought.
“You people… Can’t I just sit here and enjoy my waffling”
/Paul K.
…if the fue sh*ts…
one can conclude that the idiotic 50.1% of the voters (including the dead ones)that sodomized U.S. with this admin have NO concept of hypocrisy…
now that just tears it… i just happen to have a sist…well, maybe dingy harry reid still does..
Jimmy Carter told Krugman that they don’t hand out Nobel Prizes for
What evidence was there before?
How was the trip back from Mars?
I am not sure he flip flops, but he is demonstrably dumb as a post.
I see you still have not learned what reading comprehension is…..
See what 15 years of Kool Aid gets you? I fear the damage is permanent.
Bless ya for ALL your efforts!
If you think that was bad you should see some of the other stuff that goes on. There are things about health insurance and the government that would easily show any reasonable person why they would never want the government to run their healthcare (and I am just talking about the insurance end of it).
ohh, i’ve seen more than a few episodes of M*A*S*H
And, considering the era was early ’50s warzone, that kind of care would still be considered the gold standard compared to what the average person will be getting from ObamaCare.
No need to insult sensible footwear…
Entitlement reform…I am 68 years old and I retired when I was 64. I have had almost 5 years of blissful retirement and had planned for it for a long time. HOWEVER…If I had known when I was in my 30′s, 40′s and 50′s that I wouldn’t get full benefits until I was 68 or older, I would plan for that age. That is the point of making this change gradually! Good grief…nobody seems to be mentioning this fact in debates. They are not raising the retirement age next year!! There will be time for the younger folks to make their plans. AND, you can retire early, and just take a smaller benefit.
I am so sick and tired of all this wailing and moaning over an entitlement. Would my husband and I be in trouble if they took away our SS now? Yes, we would. We have a nice nest egg, but the SS takes care of our day to day life. We would have to change our way of living, but we would make it.
If they don’t do something about the entitlements soon, there will be nothing left for anyone in just a few short years. Why? Mainly because big government spent the money on other stuff.
Obama also – they can take their Nobels to Starbucks and for $10 get two coffees.
Economics Laureate: “I wonder why these are so expensive?”
Marc, not that I doubt you in any way, but if you had a link I’d love to read more. Nail..? Meet COFFIN!
Put me in the camp that considers this man Certifiably INSANE! Mr. Krugman, this is your new ‘home’! Andrea your nurse will be by every hour on the hour to check on you. We want you to feel welcome here at Sunny Acres!
A leftist who says one thing and then says another thing when what he said earlier is about to become reality by republicans?
This nevah happens!
/sarc
You can always say anything when it doesn’t effect or apply to you. If I had millions or better yet billions of dollars, I could support raising taxes or whatever since it would not impact my lifestyle. Take away all their money and then see how these fools agree with conservatives.
“because there is not the slightest prospect that they will be put into effect — or indeed that we will do anything serious about the looming crisis until it is almost upon us.” – Krugman
He’s not flip-flopping at all. After all, even now he’s arguing against doing anything serious about the looming crisis. To me, that makes him more consistent (if wrong-headed) than most.
Amazing. You completely ignore the force of what Michelle directly presents and divert to something that has no immediate answer (in her post, that is) so that you can call it a “draw” and walk away? UN.BE.LIEVABLE.
What about what is IN THIS POST? What say you about THAT? Regardless if he did or didn’t flip-flop before, what about THIS?
I could not believe there were people like this if I didn’t see it with my own eyes.
I would suggest that Krugman suffers from multiple personality disorder. The “conservative” Krugman is the alter or secondary personality which emerges from time to time. Will we see more personalities emerge in the days/weeks/months/years to come? Stay tuned.
Yeah, but Krugman has a Nobel Prize, like Arafat and Carter and Al Gore and Obama. You should respect him like you respect them. I do.