Paul Krugman Fires Back At Mary Matalin: She Was 'Factually Wrong'

Paul Krugman fired back at Mary Matalin on Monday, after she accused him of being a "polemicist."

The two got into a heated back-and-forth over the GOP's offer in the fiscal cliff negotiations on Sunday's "This Week." Krugman said that Republicans have given President Obama "almost nothing" to work with, while Matalin claimed that capping deductions would raise $1.7 trillion over ten years. When Krugman objected, she asked, "Are you an economist or a polemicist?"

Krugman responded in a short piece, entitled "A Brief Note on Mary Matalin," on Monday. "The briefer the better, I’d say," he began.

He continued, "I was trying to correct a claim she was making that was factually wrong." Krugman repeated his assertions that capping deductions would increase the burden on families outside of the wealthiest 2%, and hurt charitable giving.

"So Matalin yelled 'polemicist' precisely when I was trying to ensure that we had the facts straight," he wrote. "Are you surprised?" He also spoke out about the exchange in a statement to Politico.