Krugman: Obama’s Deficit Reduction Plan ‘Really Serious’; Ryan’s Is ‘A Sick Joke’
It certainly isn't a surprise that Nobel laureate Paul Krugman was far more pleased with the deficit reduction plan proposed by Barack Obama this week than the one unveiled by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) last week. In Friday's New York Times column ” Who's Serious Now? ” the unabashed liberal declared the President's proposal “really serious” and the Congressman's “a sick joke”: Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, sounds upset. And you can see why: President Obama, to the great relief of progressives, has called his bluff. Readers are advised to notice how throughout his piece, Krugman was highly disrespectful and contentious towards Ryan. Is this really necessary? No matter what one thinks about his politics, Ryan is clearly one of the most intelligent, thoughtful, and serious people on Capitol Hill today. Such a man is deserving of respect by media members on both sides of the aisle. Unfortunately, that's not how “progressives” in the press see things today. Ryan to them is an enemy whose opinions not only need refuting, but also debasing. Folks like Krugman don't only want to win the political argument with Ryan; they want to humiliate and degrade him for having the nerve to offer ideas counter to their own. Such is not only the climate in Washington today, but also at so-called news outlets that are stoking the fires of hyper-partisanship as they hypocritically complain about the caustic tone in politics: Then people who actually understand budget numbers went to work, and it became clear that [Ryan's] proposal wasn’t serious at all. In fact, it was a sick joke. To Krugman, a plan to eliminate over $6 trillion in deficit spending in the next ten years is a sick joke. As you might imagine, he's far happier with the President's proposal: And then Mr. Obama laid out a budget plan that really is serious…[T]he vision was right, and the numbers were far more credible than anything in the Ryan sales pitch. The numbers were far more credible than anything in the Ryan sales pitch? As NewsBusters reported Thursday, there's nothing credible about Obama's numbers because he offered no specifics to back them up.
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on April 15, 2011. Filed under