In his Monday New York Times column, Paul Krugman argues that given historically low interest rates and a historically high need for infrastructure development, anyone who is still arguing for cutting the national debt is deliberately working against American interests.
Of course, "anyone" in this scenario consists almost entirely of "the party of fiscal responsibility," who put the commitment to the appearance of fiduciary planning above effective real-world solutions. Krugman offers brief, devastating rejoinders to the most common complaints of the "fiscally responsible," including:
We can’t borrow because we already have too much debt.
People who say this usually like to cite big numbers — “Our debt is 19 trillion dollars,” they intone in their best Dr. Evil voice. But everything about the U.S. economy is huge, and what matters is the comparison between the cost of servicing our debt and our ability to pay. And federal interest payments are only 1.3 percent of G.D.P., low by historical standards...
The government can’t do anything right. Solyndra! Solyndra! Benghazi!
A large part of our political class is committed to the proposition that any and all government efforts to improve our lives are doomed to failure — a proposition that turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy when these people are actually in office. But to hold that view you have to turn your back on our own history...
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