Krugman: Mitch Daniels Memories (stunning smack down!)

[ProSense]

Krugman: Mitch Daniels Memories

These days, Mitch Daniels is being held up as an icon of fiscal responsibility. There are a lot of reasons to question his actual stewardship in Indiana; but what I can’t forget is his key role in the squandering of the fiscal surplus Bush inherited. It wasn’t just that he supported the Bush tax cuts; the excuses he made for that irresponsibility were stunningly fraudulent.

So I just can’t take his current pose of deficit hawkishness seriously.

From the link:

Reckonings; Pants On Fire
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: August 24, 2001

To: Mitch Daniels, Office of Management and Budget

Dear Mitch:

I have a suggestion. It's dishonest and irresponsible -- but I suspect that doesn't bother you. And it would help you squirm out of a problem that we both know isn't going away.

True, your bobbing and weaving have been impressive. Some people have actually bought your line that the surplus has vanished because of Congressional big spending, even though the spending numbers have hardly changed since your previous, bullish projection. And most reporters, bless their tiny little heads, have written about the budget shortfall as if it were a temporary problem; they haven't looked at Table 3 of your own report, which despite all your cooking of the books projects only a razor-thin non-Social-Security surplus for the next five years.

But there's more trouble ahead. You bullied the Congressional Budget Office into delaying its own budget projection until next week, so that you could get your numbers out first. Still, when the C.B.O. numbers come out everyone knows that they will look considerably worse than yours.

Ouch!

[Kdillard]

1. The smackdown is beautiful but the problem is the American people noticing.

[ProSense]

3. Well,

stuff has a way of spreading on the Internet. Krugman gets a lot of traffic.

[WI_DEM]

2. None of these republicans should be getting away with this deficit hawk crap

where were they when Bush was squandering the surplus for 8 years?

[Proud Liberal Dem]

4. "Deficits don't matter" when Republicans are in the WH

However, they always seem to when Democrats are in the WH. hmmmm......curious. :shrug: :eyes:

[yellowcanine]

5. Not to mention that the current deficits were in large part put in place in the waning days of the

Bush administration. The TARP, bank bailouts, etc. were pretty much either enacted or necessitated by events during the Bush II administration when good old Mitch was in charge of the budget.

[ProSense]

6. Steve Benen

DANIELS CAN RUN (FOR PRESIDENT), BUT HE CAN'T HIDE (FROM HIS RECORD)....

<...>

I have the same thought every time Daniels talks about fiscal issues, which is often. It's an odd signature issue for a guy who led the Bush/Cheney budget office.

It was, after all, 10 years ago when George W. Bush signed his first massive tax-cut bill. At the time, he thanked three people for helping make it happen -- Dick Cheney, then-Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, and his director of the Office of Management and Budget, Mitch Daniels.

It was that tax-cut package that helped eliminate the massive surplus Bush and Daniels had inherited from the Clinton administration, and began a sea of red ink that, ironically, Daniels is now concerned about.

When asked about this, Daniels tends to blame the end of the dot-com bubble for eliminating Clinton-era surpluses. The argument is utter nonsense, and has been thoroughly debunked.

<...>

[Stuart G]

7. k & r