Krugman On Laffer's Continuing Influence With Republicans

Paul Krugman elaborates on a profile in the once great Washington Post Bezos Bugle of discredited supply side "economist" Arthur Laffer, from whom Republican presidential hopefuls are still seeking counsel:

The question you should ask, then, is why this always-wrong economic doctrine now has a stronger grip on the GOP than ever before.

It wasn’t always thus. George W. Bush’s inner circle clearly had little use for the likes of Laffer; they engaged in a lot of deceptive advertising about the economy (and a few other things), but they never made extravagant supply-side claims — and remember that Greg “charlatans and cranks” Mankiw served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. But since 2009 the GOP has swerved hard right into fantasy land — and it has done so despite a remarkable string of dead-wrong predictions by the people peddling that fantasy. [snip]

What seems to have happened to American conservatives is that they have lost all the checks and balances that used to limit that kind of solipsism. And of course it’s not just economic policy.

What do we do in the face of a major party gone mad?

As we know, the madness of the Republican/ New Confederate/ Stupid Party doesn't begin and end with its attraction to supply side/ trickle down economics.  It also shows up in its anti-science, anti-woman, anti-LGBT, anti-poor, anti-Latino, anti-black, anti-Muslim pathologies.  The answer to Krugman's rhetorical question is, we each do everything we can to remove these people from power and keep them away.

The Sky Didn't Fall Quote of the Day

"Tax increases aren’t economic suicide; sometimes they’re a useful way to pay for things we need. Government programs, like Obamacare, can work if the people running them want them to work, and if they aren’t sabotaged from the right. In other words, California’s success is a demonstration that the extremist ideology still dominating much of American politics is nonsense." (emphasis added) -- Paul Krugman, writing in the New York Times, on the erroneous, dire predictions of right-wingers that California would implode after Gov. Jerry Brown raised taxes, invested in infrastructure, and raised the minimum wage.  What actually happened was increased employment, budget surpluses, and successful implementation of the state health insurance exchange under the Affordable Care Act.

Survival of the Unfittest

Nobel laureate Paul Krugman has an article in this morning's New York Times that focuses on the discredited supply-side economic philosophy and why it continues to survive.  The basic theory is that by reducing tax rates on the wealthy and on corporations, a surge of economic activity benefitting everyone will be unleashed, when in fact nothing of the sort happens.  Meanwhile, social services and infrastructure are cut.  So why has the theory survived?  The short answer is it rewards corporate interests and the very wealthy, who push the theory using such front organizations as the American Legislative Exchange Council which promotes anti-labor, anti-environment and other reactionary legislation around the country.

St. Ronnie of Hollywood let the "charlatans and cranks" of supply-side theory into the halls of government during his administration, and Federal deficits skyrocketed.  As Krugman notes, you have to follow the money to understand:

"But how can you justify enriching the already wealthy while making life harder for those struggling to get by? The answer is, you need an economic theory claiming that such a policy is the key to prosperity for all. So supply-side economics fills a need backed by lots of money, and the fact that it keeps failing doesn’t matter."