In fact, look at today. He said this:
The failure of the stimulus that never happened has become conventional wisdom — which is what I feared would happen, two years ago, when I was tearing my hair out over the inadequacy of the original plan.
Yes, I know, it’s argued that Obama couldn’t have gotten anything more. I don’t really want to revisit all of that; my point here is simply that everyone is drawing the wrong lesson. Fiscal policy didn’t fail; it wasn’t tried.
Again, is Dr. Krugman right? Was the Stimulus too small? Yeah. (These would be the numbers of which I spoke.)
Dr. Krugman is also right to acknowledge that nothing higher in price could have passed the Congress, yet he doesn't want to talk about that...or any possible solutions to that massive roadblock. No, it's always the same: Obama should lead more.
Andrew Sullivan is no different in this regard. I believe he's a genuine Conservative, unlike the breed we have now in the Republican Party. But like most conservatives, he's got a serious debt fetish, bordering on obsessive. He is genuinely correct that the long term debt is a problem, but seems to be willing to engage in a fiscal scorched earth policy in order to do it. I find this particularly easy for a man who wasn't born here, or raised here to say give up the things you associate with making your country great in order to satisfy my demand for debt control
Mr. Sullivan. Go @#$% yourself.
It's real easy to send America into another Depression when you're secure in your job, and don't have to worry about the rent getting paid at all. But hey, any sacrifice you're willing to make is good enough for him. We're going to grow our way out of this hole, unless I start hearing what sacrifices you're willing to make to your bottom line to get it done? Willing to give up you and lover's Mortgage Interest Deduction? Didn't think so.
He speaks on the debt with the zealotry of the newly converted. He hates the Social Safety net. He's convinced that it did in his native England, and is convinced it will happen here:
To all those under 30 who worked so hard to get this man elected, know this: he just screwed you over. He thinks you're fools. Either the US will go into default because of Obama's cowardice, or you will be paying far far more for far far less because this president has no courage when it counts. He let you down. On the critical issue of America's fiscal crisis, he represents no hope and no change. Just the same old Washington politics he once promised to end.
Honestly, go @#$% yourself Andrew.
I actually found that paragraph more than a little offensive. I feel quite capable in my own political judgments and don't need to be called a dupe or stupid in the process. It may be at times I don't agree with you, is the line I remember most from Page 11 of Audacity of Hope. Apparently, Andrew hasn't read it either. If he has that admonition wasn't good enough for him.
Forunately, we have people like Jonathan Chait to smack him around:
Andrew Sullivan is back from his absence and in incredibly high dudgeon over the Obama administration's failure to propose a more austere budget. Andrew concedes that any such proposal would fail and exact huge political damage upon Obama but somehow thinks it's unconscionable Obama didn't do it anyway.
...
Why would proposing something that gets shot down not be not only useful but an absolute moral obligation? I don't really get it. It seems like the smart play is to first win the budget showdown and try to beat some sanity into the Republicans, who can't possibly compromise right now, and then either cut a deal or (preferably) just let the GOP kill the entire Bush tax cuts for you, which would more or less take care of the medium-term deficit problem.
No, Jonathan. Don't you understand? It's the standard problem people have with this President. Either he does it the way they want him to do it, word for word, line by line, or he's a completely and utter failure, fraud, cynic or liar. Pick your poison.
