Stephen Moore, founder of the (Country) Club for (Plutocratic) Growth and now an unstoppable spigot of supply-side orthodoxy at the Wall Street Journal, just insisted on "The PBS Newshour" that because the economy is growing at only about 2 percent -- and not at 5 percent, where, according to Moore, it should be -- Keynesians have a lot of explaining to do.
You may recall -- and Moore trusts you don't -- that in the run-up to 2009's stimulus package, Keynesian economists urged, at minimum, a $1.2 trillion direct government investment in the economy. What Congress delivered, at the insistence of Moore-esque, supply-siding Republicans, was a package approximately 35 percent smaller than that, and approximately 40 percent of that smaller amount consisted of far less stimulative tax cuts, rather than direct spending.
Hence, all told, after the two mathematical subtractions, Keynesian economists got about 40 percent of the direct spending that Keynesian economists said was needed.
Now we're running at about 2 percent growth. What's 40 percent of 5 percent growth? Yep, 2 percent.
But it's the Keynesians, you see, who have a lot of explaining to do.
Yes. It's the Republicans fault that a solidly Democratic Party-controlled House, with a solid Democratic Part-controlled Senate, sent a stimulus bill which the newly elected, non-Bush Democratic President signed into law.
Do you really believe the drivel that you write, or is this just a farce?
Posted by: Olliander | June 03, 2011 at 10:28 AM
Oh Lord, PM, some of the "seething, tempestuous horde of geezers and bigots and thumpers and temperamental medievalists and Hayekian hayseeds" have discovered you!
Posted by: Ansel M. | June 03, 2011 at 12:26 PM
Indeed, Ansel, and notice with what brilliantly incisive analysis they refute our PM's points?
Posted by: janicket | June 03, 2011 at 05:00 PM