Nice job media

One of the many shocking things that is apparent -- from history (spending decrease in mid-to-late 30s) and from contemporary evidence (from Greece to the UK to our own shrinking of government jobs) -- is that austerity is the WORST possible policy to take for any modern economy.

Nevertheless this is rarely discussed in the media, polls show "deficits" are a major voting concern without any discussion of what it involves or means.  Republicans have little interest but lying about it, Democrats having not figured out how to discuss it, seeing the media not report it accurately, and seeing the polls just cower.  It is -- in many ways -- the perfect summation of all modern politics.

Well, to not quote, but summarize, Paul Krugman -- fuck that shit:

...on Thursday Republicans in the House of Representatives passed what was surely the most fraudulent budget in American history. 

...to make his numbers work Mr. Ryan would, by 2022, have to close enough loopholes to yield an extra $700 billion in revenue every year. That’s a lot of money, even in an economy as big as ours. So which specific loopholes has Mr. Ryan, who issued a 98-page manifesto on behalf of his budget, said he would close? 

None. Not one. He has, however, categorically ruled out any move to close the major loophole that benefits the rich, namely the ultra-low tax rates on income from capital. (That’s the loophole that lets Mitt Romney pay only 14 percent of his income in taxes, a lower tax rate than that faced by many middle-class families.) 

So what are we to make of this proposal? Mr. Gleckman calls it a “mystery meat budget,” but he’s being unfair to mystery meat. The truth is that the filler modern food manufacturers add to their products may be disgusting — think pink slime — but it nonetheless has nutritional value. Mr. Ryan’s empty promises don’t. You should think of those promises, instead, as a kind of throwback to the 19th century, when unregulated corporations bulked out their bread with plaster of paris and flavored their beer with sulfuric acid.

Not that this outright fraud will be discussed, for Paul Ryan is a SERIOUS person and Paul Krugman is just some partisan lefty and who can ever give them any time...what with their being correct all the time as they push that Sisyphean boulder of truth up Mount Everest.

After all what does Krugman know anyway? What with his Nobel Prize in Economics...as opposed to Paul Ryan's substantial victory in winning the lottery for Reagan's hair.*

*And really is that hair not the creepiest fetish in existence?