Monday, May 25, 2009

Paul Krugman: Economist Or Politician?

As Jimmy Durante sometimes said, " Everybody wants to get into the act". 

Give an economist a Nobel Prize and suddenly he wants to parlay himself into a bleeding-heart liberal politician and maybe run for the senate. Like we need another Jew in the senate. Krugman's piece in todays NYT says that California's budget problems started with the passage of Propostion 13 in 1978. Prop 13 was a property tax limitation initiative and also required a 2/3 majority vote by the legislature to raise income taxes. It passed overwhelmingly. I paid property taxes pre-Prop 13. I kept up with the never-ending increases. But many could not. Many older people lost or had to sell their homes because they couldn't keep up with taxes.

Krugman wants Propostion 13 repealed. He presumably wants unlimited tax and spending in its place. He sounds more like a bleeding-heart liberal politician than a disciplined economist who is guided by prudent, realistic policies.

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