That Voodoo That You Do Like Hell

Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman examines the unfortunately very real possibility that if Republicans retake the Senate and retain the House, they will be able, by tweaking the formulas used by the Congressional Budget Office ("heretofore a nonpartisan referee on policy proposals" as Krugman describes it), to reinstitute... you guessed it... what the elder George Bush and many of us even less fond of Ronald Reagan than he was called "voodoo economics."

"Poppy" Bush

Voodoo economics, in brief, is cutting taxes to promote economic growth, the formula used aggressively by Saint Ronald to wreck the American economy from about 1980 for about the rest of my natural life. It never really worked to promote genuine economic growth: it was, and is, a signature of allegedly conservative economic policy which has one measurable effect, namely, to make the rich richer and send the rest of us to economic hell. Since its aggressive promotion in 1980, the world's economists have had almost 35 years to examine voodoo economics in its American incarnation and in a number of other countries where variants of it were tried (see Krugman), and to people willing to accept the evidence rather than the ideology, it is manifestly a catastrophe for everyone except those so wealthy that the economic context of the market in which they operate has no effect on their acquisition of wealth. In other words, as one old song has it, "the rich get rich and the poor get poorer." Ain't we got fun.

I am to a point at which I find it increasingly difficult to advocate empowering the Democratic Party. But the Republican Party is nothing but a fast ride straight to hell, especially for the middle class, who are America's last, best hope of avoiding that steep descent.

"Boy" Paul

In November, you can vote for the disappointing Democrats. Or you can vote for a party full of people like Rand Paul, whom Krugman quotes as follows:

When is the last time in our country we created millions of jobs? It was under Ronald Reagan.

Right. Bill Clinton never existed, and he is now invisible.

Vote for Republicans at your peril.