Krugman: "For The Children..."

KRUGMAN: "FOR THE CHILDREN..." Paul Krugman covers all too familiar ground in his New York Times column today -- supposed Bush/Blair lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and a quote-fest from the always-reliable British press (no correction or retraction of his uncritical quotation of Vanity Fair's misquotation of Paul Wolfowitz, natch).

David Hogberg does a fine job of revealing the true context of Krugman's deceptively out-of-context Bush quotes. Robert Musil has speculated that Krugman is positioning himself for a job at the Financial Times.

"Republican National Committee declared that the latest tax cut benefits 'everyone who pays taxes.' That is simply a lie. You've heard about those eight million children denied any tax break by a last-minute switcheroo.

In total, 50 million American households — including a majority of those with members over 65 — get nothing; another 20 million receive less than $100 each. And a great majority of those left behind do pay taxes."

Krugman thus joins another Howell Raines "flood-the-zone" attack (in the fine Times tradition of its coverage of Enron and the non-admission of women members to Augusta). In under a week Times readers have already had inflicted upon them to this May 29 story by David Firestone, this May 30 editorial, this June 1 follow-up by Firestone, these five June 1 letters (4 supporting the Times' position), and this June 2 op-ed by Bob Herbert.

But in none of that coverage is there any mention of the strongly worded refutation by Senate Finance Committee chair Charles Grassley of the Times lie that Krugman repeats here -- that there was a "last-minute switcheroo." As Grassley puts it,

"The change reported in today’s New York Times was not a last-minute revision. The accelerated refundable child tax credit was not in the President’s original proposal, and it was not in the bill passed by the House of Representatives.

"This credit, a new and expanded spending program, was added to the jobs and economic growth bill on top of the tax-cut provisions during the Senate Finance Committee markup. When House-Senate conferees were forced to fit all of the tax cuts and all of the new government spending into a $350 billion package, the add-ons, including this new government spending, were dropped from the bill."

And how about some sources... there are none. It's just "you've heard about." Krugman now expects us to source his claims about taxes from the "impeccable statistical work" of the liberal think tanks he mentioned on his personal website last week. I checked those web sites, and I couldn't find anything about "eight million children denied any tax break." In fact I couldn't find anything about eight million children who even pay taxes in the first place.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/commentary.html#06_02_03_0819

Tuesday, June 3 2003
PROFESSOR PAUL: Paul Krugman is without question the most dishonest pundit in America. I keep vowing to stop writing about his columns, but then I wake up two times every week to see that he's reached a new low.

Today Krugman offers a sweeping indictment of the Bush administration for continually misleading the public. (Pause here to clear throat from the choking hypocrisy). I'll skip over Krugman's way, way, way overstated case on WMD's and get straight to the tax cut issue. Krugman says:

"the Republican National Committee declared that the latest tax cut benefits "everyone who pays taxes." That is simply a lie. You've heard about those eight million children denied any tax break by a last-minute switcheroo. In total, 50 million American households — including a majority of those with members over 65 — get nothing; another 20 million receive less than $100 each. And a great majority of those left behind do pay taxes."

Well, we know the eight million children Krugman refers to are members of families who already don't pay any federal income taxes. Krugman also doesn't cite the income level of the 50 million households who get nothing. Finally, and perhaps most tellingly, he drops the conspicuously vague phrase, "a great majority of those left behind do pay taxes."

Why does Krugman use this phrase instead of citing a statistic to support his case here? C'mon Paul, you're an economics professor for God's sake, you should know the numbers. Is it because Krugman is really referring to people who pay the payroll tax (not federal income tax) but he doesn't want to admit it?

Here's another good question: how is one of the most liberal, hyper-partisan, and misleading "pundits" in America also able to double as "respected" Professor of Economics at one of the country's most elite learning institutions?

John and I are both Princeton alums and we've had to suffer the indignity of our alma mater employing the likes of Peter Singer and Cornel West (twice), but Krugman is even more of a stain on the institution. Economics is, after all, supposed to be a somewhat objective discipline and the university does its reputation no favors by letting a partisan political pundit be the star of its program.

If I were still at school I'd gather up the five other conservatives on campus and stage a serious protest. But that's just me.

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