The Man Who Called for "Death Panels" to Save Money Now Claims Mitt Romney Wants to Let People Die to Save Money

I know it is shocking to readers to hear that Paul Krugman claims that his Keynesianism is purely empirical and based only on "facts," and that his televised statements recommending "death panels" did not come from ideology, but rather from Holy Empiricism. (Yes, I now. Krugman later claimed that he really didn't say what he said and that only an ideologue could contend that his statement calling for "death panels" to "save money" actually was a recommendation of letting people die prematurely in order to "save money.")

So, even though Krugman said the following, he really didn't say it and I am sure that his gaggle of groupies will believe him:

Some years down the pike, we're going to get the real solution, which is going to be a combination of death panels and sales taxes. It's going to be that we're actually going to take Medicare under control, and we're going to have to get some additional revenue, probably from a VAT.

 So, given Krugman's previous statements (which he made but didn't make), he now accuses Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan of wanting to let people die in order to "save money." However, RR are even more sinister than just pure "death panels" advocates:

The Romney-Ryan position on health care is that many millions of Americans must be denied health insurance, and millions more deprived of the security Medicare now provides, in order to save money. At the same time, of course, Mr. Romney and Mr. Ryan are proposing trillions of dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy. So a literal description of their plan is that they want to expose many Americans to financial insecurity, and let some of them die, so that a handful of already wealthy people can have a higher after-tax income.

I had no idea that the reason that some people believe that capital gains taxes should not be as high as Krugman and Barack Obama demand is because they want people to die. The explanation I always heard was that high capital gains taxes limit capital investment, but since capital is irrelevant to a Keynesian (except for its promotion of short-term spending), I guess Krugman's answer makes sense. Yes, anyone who thinks that we should not be putting tax barriers in the way of capital formation believes so because he or she wants people to be without healthcare in their most dire moments.

Hoodathunkitt?

Yes, Paul, it IS politics!

In what Jeffrey Tucker of the Mises Institute calls "The Most Evil Column Ever," Paul Krugman begins to come clean. If I read his recent statements correctly, Krugman is claiming that the economy easily can be "fixed" with a dose of inflation, heavy taxation, and borrowing, and that anyone who might see things differently does so because that person is pure evil.

Krugman has not gone as far as Michael Moore, who recently called for the arrest of the CEO of Standard & Poors for permitting his agency to downgrade U.S. Government debt, but he is moving in that direction. As Anthony Gregory has put it, we are seeing the totalitarian mindset of the Progressives in action, and Krugman is right in the middle of it with his unhinged rhetoric. (Gregory, one of the most insightful writers out there today, notes that we now are faced with totalitarian thinking on both right and left. His column definitely is worth a read.)

Before deconstructing Krugman's column and his latest blog posts, I would like to quote Tucker who makes a most salient observation regarding S&P's supposed sin:

Krugman seems to regard the down-rating as the sin that cries out to heaven for vengeance. And why? Because S&P had given Lehman Bros. an A rating before it went bankrupt and therefore the company has no credibility.

Huh? Doesn’t his point suggest the opposite of what he intends? By his own account, S&P has a bias to overrate bonds. S&P down rated U.S. debt from AAA to AA+. Seems like S&P could continue to downlist U.S. debt a long way before even approaching Lehman territory. Plus, if A is supposed to be a vote of confidence in Lehman, how can AA+ constitute a pessimism so horrible that it is a crime against humanity?

That is an excellent point. Furthermore, what Krugman does not point out is that the government was strongly encouraging the formulation of the toxic assets through its various programs, and the Federal Reserve System quietly stood in the background with its promised "Greenspan-Bernanke Put."

To say it another way, one easily can argue that S&P was doing what its political masters wanted it to do: give high ratings to government-inspired debt. Likewise, as we can see with the reaction of Krugman, Moore, Congress, and the White House to the latest S&P move, the consequences of telling the truth -- that the emperor wears no clothes -- are severe. With upcoming Senate hearings on S&P, we can be assured that the iron fist of the state is going to follow.

So, it is politics after all, but a different kind of politics. Krugman blames Goldstein, er, the Republicans, for all of the problems -- ALL of them. According to Krugman, even when the Democrats held the White House AND insurmountable majorities in the House and Senate, somehow Goldstein, er, the Republicans, managed to keep them from spending what Krugman says was enough money to "stimulate" the economy and give it "traction."

How did the Republicans do that dastardly deed? Why they disagreed with Paul Krugman. Yes, mere words, something that never bothered the Democrats before, suddenly stopped them dead in their tracks and made them initiate what Krugman has called "austerity." Yes, through Fox News (which Krugman and his allies never watch, anyway), the conservatives managed to destroy all the good Krugman demanded that Obama do. The fact that the Democrats had the major media all on their side from the NY Times to the news networks apparently meant nothing, as just the existence of dissent somehow overpowered the powerful.

To me, that is a huge howler. What Krugman is saying is that the very presence of people who might see the world differently than him is unacceptable. Given his recent endorsement of the view that the only way we can bring back prosperity is through state violence against businesses and banks, we can see where he and his political allies are headed. Look for Krugman to endorse measures in the future that smack of totalitarianism and outright violence.

Krugman no longer is even engaging in debate. The same person who spoke glowingly of "death panels" now is claiming that only the conservatives have used the term. For that matter, Krugman's ally Robert Reich also has endorsed "death panels," although he termed things differently.

For all of his talk of being the prophet in the wilderness, Krugman clearly is part of the political establishment. The recent Time screed against the Tea Party points out that the establishment view is that Ben Bernanke is a sober tiller of the economy, that John Maynard Keynes provides the way to prosperity, and that Ron Paul is a wacko nut job. In other words, the political establishment -- and Time is part of that group -- has no problem with Krugman.

What we are seeing is a roadmap to destruction. On one side, Krugman is claiming that tax-borrow-print-spend will bring us prosperity when, in fact, it will only make things worse. And as the hole continues to get deeper, Krugman and his friends are going to call for outright totalitarian measures against anyone who disagrees with them. You can bank on that one.

Krugman's "Death Panels" for the Economy

Paul Krugman definitely has thing thing about "death panels." In fact, he so much is enamored with them that apparently he believes that the American economy itself should be forced to die.

That is not what he believes he is saying, but as I see it, his recommendations are akin to bleeding the patient to death (and digging our economic hole even deeper). He writes in his most recent column:

If there’s one piece of economic wisdom I hope people will grasp this year, it’s this: Even though we may finally have stopped digging, we’re still near the bottom of a very deep hole.

So, what does Krugman recommend? Well, he seems to believe that we are not digging fast enough, and that more digging will get us out of the hole. Krugman declares:

So what can be done to accelerate this all-too-slow process of healing? A rational political system would long since have created a 21st-century version of the Works Progress Administration — we’d be putting the unemployed to work doing what needs to be done, repairing and improving our fraying infrastructure.

Yes, yes, bring back the WPA! Yeah, the organization with the alternative title, "We Piddle Around," and "We Poke Along." I'm not sure that a "rational political system" would be creating such waste, but to Krugman, the economy simply is a mechanistic mass of homogeneous factors into which one throws in a bunch of money, with an economy magically appearing.

What Krugman never will understand is that the kind of government he demands is a burden to the economy, not a stimulator. I have yet to see him suggest one thing that actually would make our economy stronger. Instead, he claims that we can have a recovery based upon government spending and subsidized "green energy" production.

Now, both Krugman and I see problems on the horizon, but for two very different reasons. First, here come Krugman's worries:

Realistically, the best we can hope for from fiscal policy is that Washington doesn’t actively undermine the recovery. Beware, in particular, the Ides of March: by then, the federal government will probably have hit its debt limit and the G.O.P. will try to force President Obama into economically harmful spending cuts.

I’m also worried about monetary policy. Two months ago, the Federal Reserve announced a new plan to promote job growth by buying long-term bonds; at the time, many observers believed that the initial $600 billion purchase was only the beginning of the story. But now it looks like the end, partly because Republicans are trying to bully the Fed into pulling back, but also because a run of slightly better economic news provides an excuse to do nothing.

Now, I am not sure how the Fed's QE2 or QE100 would "promote job growth" in the long term, given that it would more likely result in stagflation. For that matter, what this economy needs is real economic growth, and if that occurs, then "job growth" will follow.

Instead, Krugman really seems to believe that if the government creates official "jobs" and then pays people with printed money (QE2 version), then the result will be a growing, robust economy. Well, maybe Krugman and Brad DeLong believe that nonsense, but everything he is recommending will do nothing but make the economic hole we are in even deeper and the sick economy even more ill.

Krugman's Voodoo Economics: Tax, Spend, and Inflate Ourselves Into Prosperity

Paul Krugman is in his element again. The Republicans control the U.S. House of Representatives and the Democrats no longer have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. A very liberal Democrat occupies the White House and is governing via executive orders (winning Krugman's approval, although executive orders are good only when Democrat presidents issue them).

So, even though Democrats still have the upper hand, in Krugman's mind the Republicans rule. Why? Because tax rates are not even higher than they are now. Furthermore, because the top individual income tax rate remains at 35 percent instead of being raised to 39.6 percent, all is lost because, in Krugman's view, that 4.96 difference is the difference between having a manageable federal budget and having large deficits. (Well, that 4.96 AND "death panels.")

All of this leads to a very interesting view of the Economy According to Krugman. As he wrote earlier this year, if it were up to him, ALL tax rates would rise, which would give the government more money (supposedly), lead to more spending, and give the economy a boost. (I'm not sure that Krugman's scenario would follow; when Herbert Hoover got Congress to raise taxes in 1932, revenues actually fell, but, then, Hoover was a Republican and did not have the requisite magical Krugmanian touch that Democrats have when it comes to taxes and spending.)

In his column today, Krugman accuses the Republicans of "hypocrisy," because they both support tax cuts and give lip service to balancing the federal budget. Actually, I agree with Krugman on this point, but I'm not sure the guy who accused Sarah Palin of "lying" on "death panels" and then glowingly spoke of "death panels" before denying he had claimed he really didn't mean what he just had said is someone who should call others "hypocrites."

Nonetheless, I think that we have a pretty clear picture of what Krugman believes will "revitalized" the American economy: higher taxes, more government spending, and inflation. On top of that, Krugman wants to bring back the old financial cartels that existed from the New Deal until the 1980s, not to mention other economic cartels that were prevalent under the federal government's regulatory schemes.

Those of us where were adults in 1980 can remember the outright stagflation that accompanied the government's economic policies, when inflation was in double-digits, unemployment was rising, and we saw no way out. Yet, Krugman wants to bring back those days via the resurrection of the old regulatory regimes and bursts of government spending and inflation.

Step back, folks, and take a hard look at what Krugman is recommending. This is a recipe for stagflation and lots of it. It is NOT a recipe for revitalizing our economy, period.

Economic laws have not changed. Government cannot repeal the Law of Scarcity nor can it order an economy into prosperity no matter what Krugman tells us. Indeed, what Krugman is recommending is nothing short of True Voodoo Economics.

There Will Be Hypocrisy

On a recent appearance on ABC's "This Week," Paul Krugman spoke glowingly of what he called "death panels." In fact, he referred to "death panels" as a "real solution" in helping to get a "real solution" to federal budget problems. He really did say that, but Krugman being Krugman quickly made a posting on his blog that declared that he really did not mean exactly what he said even though, frankly, he meant exactly what he said.

What was significant about that whole affair was that Krugman and his friends and admirers for the last two years have called Sarah Palin a liar because she said that federalizing medical care ultimately will feature what she called "death panels." Krugman called the idea a "complete fabrication," except that he obviously understood all along that a U.S. government medical care program, which would be responsible for determining who receives medical care, would emulate those Europeans Krugman so much admires, and those countries have death panels.

The reason I bring up last week's incident is that Krugman now takes a stray quote from Alan Simpson as "proof" that there is some sort of GOP conspiracy to shut down the federal government and destroy the world:

Now, you might think that the prospect of this kind of standoff, which might deny many Americans essential services, wreak havoc in financial markets and undermine America’s role in the world, would worry all men of good will. But no, Mr. Simpson “can’t wait.” And he’s what passes, these days, for a reasonable Republican.

Now, I am no fan of Alan Simpson and really don't take anything he says very seriously. Yes, he and Erskine Bowles co-chaired a "Deficit Commission," which also was nothing less than one of the dog-and-pony shows that Washington brings out once in a while to dazzle the media and to tell the taxpayers that Washington Is Serious About Cutting The Deficit.

Yes, I am sure that some Republicans are going to make noise when the debt limit has to be raised this coming spring in order for the U.S. Government to continue borrowing at unsustainable levels. Furthermore, after a few members of Congress engage in The Usual Grandstanding, demand some "concessions" from President Obama (which he will ignore after making public show of concern for the deficit), Congress will vote to extend the debt limit and go on its merry way.

In the past, we even have had to veritable "train wreck" in which the debt limit passes and (horrors) THE GOVERNMENT SHUTS DOWN. Except that it really does not shut down. Yes, they make a big show of closing the Washington Monument, and I am sure that there would be a few other high-profile, low-impact closings in order to try to convince people that Their Savior Is Not Operating, and the Usual Suspects in the media will play Their Usual Role in telling us we're doomed unless Washington can spend more.

As Krugman continues his role as a partisan shill, he gives us this gem:

...the G.O.P. opposes anything that might help sustain demand in a depressed economy — even aid to small businesses, which the party claims to love.

Right now, in particular, Republicans are blocking an extension of unemployment benefits — an action that will both cause immense hardship and drain purchasing power from an already sputtering economy. But there’s no point appealing to the better angels of their nature; America just doesn’t work that way anymore.

I had not realized that he was getting ready to trot out the unemployment benefits canard again. Now, if Krugman really were to believe this "demand" nonsense, I wonder why he does not endorse Washington just creating a few trillion dollars or more and just leaving the sacks of money at our doorsteps just before Black Friday. You want spending? We'll GIVE you spending!

Yes, yes, we know. Had the government spent $1.2 trillion instead of $800 billion for its "stimulus" efforts, we would be in a full-blown recovery by now. All for the want of $400 billion, and now the Evil GOP wants to end any more "stimulus" efforts and destroy the world.

Let's sum it up. Krugman uses the actual term "death panels" but really does not mean "death panels," except we know that he does. Alan Simpson uses "blood bath" and he obviously means every word. Emmanuel Goldstein lives!

Paul Krugman Was Against Death Panels Before He Was For Them -- Before He Never Said It

When Sarah Palin wrote last year that ObamaCare would lead to "death panels," the Usual Suspects howled, along with Paul Krugman. The LA Times declared it the "biggest lie of 2009" and the New York Times also weighed in with a solemn declaration that there would be no such thing as a "death panel."

Fast forward to Krugman's November 14 appearance on ABC's "This Week" in which he not only claimed that the budget would need to get under control via controlling healthcare costs, but he specifically used the term "death panels" as a cost-controlling device. In his own words:

"Some years down the pike, we're going to get the real solution, which is going to be a combination of death panels and sales taxes. It's going to be that we're actually going to take Medicare under control, and we're going to have to get some additional revenue, probably from a VAT. But it's not going to happen now."

So, after having made fun of Palin, calling her a liar and worse, Krugman himself endorses such a thing. Obviously, he realized he was in hot water for his Freudian slip, so he quickly posted something on his NYT blog to minimize the damage.

He writes:

So, what I said is that the eventual resolution of the deficit problem both will and should rely on “death panels and sales taxes”. What I meant is that

(a) health care costs will have to be controlled, which will surely require having Medicare and Medicaid decide what they’re willing to pay for — not really death panels, of course, but consideration of medical effectiveness and, at some point, how much we’re willing to spend for extreme care

(b) we’ll need more revenue — several percent of GDP — which might most plausibly come from a value-added tax

And if we do those two things, we’re most of the way toward a sustainable budget.

So, the "death panels" really are not "death panels" even though Krugman calls them as such. Let's be realistic, folks. Paul Krugman really does believe that we need government-created "death panels," which will operate in the name of "lower costs." He actually believes they will help, even if he won't openly admit it -- except when he admits it.

Alert! Krugman Forced to Eat with Elderly Tea Party Folks!!

Poor, Paul Krugman. Though he might try to rid his vision of those horrible people who refuse to share his worldview, alas, he is forced at times to eat with the Great Unwashed:

I just had dinner in DC with a bunch of geographers, at a cute French bistro near Dupont Circle. And who should walk in but about eight tea partiers, still carrying their protest signs. They marched in, then upstairs, and sat down for dinner.

Presumably their steak frites came with freedom fries.

Oh, and based on casual observation, every member of the group was on Social Security and Medicare. I guess they’re determined not to let the government get its hands on either program.

No doubt, Krugman will be a happy camper when those supposedly non-existent, money-saving Death Panels take care of those dissidents.

Krugman on the "Money-Saving Death Panels"

I can tell that Paul Krugman is excited. FINALLY! The government is going to force real cost savings at what is supposedly at the end of life. See the video below and decide for yourself if Sarah Palin is the idiot (at least on this subject) that Krugman claims she is:



(Hat tip to Mike)