Getting things epically wrong and denying reality gains you points in today's GOP.
By Janet AllonFebruary 20, 2015
Today's
GOP is a kind of bizarro world where ambitious politicians are forced
to pledge allegiance to experts who have gotten just about everything
wrong. So writes Paul Krugman in his column Friday,
who laments the fact that "charlatans and cranks" have gained
increasing favor in the party, despite, or maybe even because of, the
fact that they get things wrong, and then, by golly, stick to their
guns.
This being Krugman, the topic is economics, specifically "supply-siders," a group which even N. Gregory Mankiw,
a professor at Harvard who served for a time as George W. Bush’s chief
economic adviser, made fun of when their belief that tax cuts would
provide a magical elixir to the economy and miraculously fix deficits
proved so very wrong. But the fact that even a Republican adviser said
this approach is bunk has had absolutely no effect on the party's
thinking. Proof: Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, a contender for the
Republican presidential nomination, spoke at a dinner at
Manhattan’s “21” Club this week. It was "hosted by the three most
prominent supply-siders: Art Laffer (he of the curve); Larry Kudlow of
CNBC; and Stephen Moore, chief economist of the Heritage Foundation.
Politico pointed out that Rick Perry, the former governor of Texas,
attended a similar event last month. Clearly, to be a Republican
contender you have to court the powerful charlatan caucus," Krugman
writes.
Not to put
too fine a point on it, Krugman adds: "A doctrine that even Republican
economists consider dangerous nonsense has become party orthodoxy. And
what makes this political triumph especially remarkable is that it comes
just as the doctrine’s high priests have been setting new standards for
utter, epic predictive failure."
It
is not merely that the supply-siders did not see the economic crisis
coming, although they didn't. Then again, lots of economists failed to
see it, so Krugman gives them a mild pass on that. It's the
"post-crisis" developments that have been even more telling. "The people
Mr. Walker was courting have spent years warning about the wrong
things," Krugman writes. "'Get ready for inflation and higher interest
rates' was the title of a June 2009 op-ed article in The Wall Street
Journal by Mr. Laffer; what followed were the lowest inflation in two generations and the lowest interest rates in history. Mr. Kudlow and Mr. Moore both predicted 1970s-style stagflation."
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