Krugman's Not-So-Excellent Adventure

IBD reports:

A Page 1 article Monday about the "Myth Of Austerity" got harsh reactions from two liberal economists. But in trashing IBD, they exposed the weakness of their claim that more spending will grow the economy.

The IBD article pointed out that, despite the hue and cry over government spending cuts — including claims by Republicans that they'd enacted $38 billion in cuts for fiscal year 2011 — federal spending has actually increased by nearly 5% in the first nine months of this year.

It went on to point out that liberal economists such as Jared Bernstein and Paul Krugman had nevertheless been gnashing their teeth about how spending cuts were dragging down the economy.

Here's Bernstein: "Government spending cutbacks have been a large drag on growth in recent quarters and have led to sharp losses in state and local employment."

And here's Krugman in a New York Times Op-Ed from a few weeks ago: "In Europe, troubled nations like Greece and Ireland have imposed savage cuts, even as stronger nations have imposed milder austerity programs of their own. In the United States, the modest federal stimulus of 2009 has faded out, while state and local governments have slashed their budgets, so that over all we've had a de facto move toward austerity not so different from Europe's."

So, now that we know spending actually has continued to climb at both the federal and state level, these two esteemed liberals say: No, no, no! You don't understand! The real problem, you see, is spending isn't going up fast enough!

A look at Enron adviser Paul Krugman.