Representative Ron Paul sees himself as an independent thinker -- not afraid to confront the conventional wisdom, whether in the form of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke or mainstream views within the Republican Party. As I have written elsewhere recently, we should take Mr. Paul seriously -- and not simply dismiss his proposals out of hand.
However, Mr. Paul's current proposals for the federal budget can only be described as fiscally irresponsible. This is completely at odds with his more general stated principles (including in the hearing with Mr. Bernanke this morning), including his well-articulated concern about inflation.
According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), Ron Paul's proposals would -- even under the most optimistic scenario -- leave federal debt roughly where it is now, i.e., at an elevated and dangerous level relative to the size of our economy (see pp. 19-24 of the CRFB report). More realistically, however, we should use the CRFB's high-debt scenario to evaluate all politicians -- reflecting the fact that not everything in the world economy will prove smooth sailing over the next decade.
Under this scenario, Mr. Paul's proposals would increase debt to over 90 percent of GDP -- roughly the same level currently seen in Italy and other troubled European countries.
I understand that other Republican presidential candidates are even more irresponsible than Mr. Paul (including, most spectacularly, Newt Gingrich). I will have more to say about this tomorrow.
But why does Mr. Paul -- an iconoclast of the right and a person who sees himself as a "fiscal conservative" -- feels comfortable putting forward proposals that would likely boost our national debt by so much?
Simon Johnson is the co-author of White House Burning: The Founding Fathers, Our National Debt, and Why It Matters To You, available from April 3rd. This post is cross-posted from The Baseline Scenario.
fanned
Right now worrying about deficits is a distraction...Paul is a hypocrite and he should be "called out" on it but I'm with the MMT folk in saying that deficits for a sovereign country like the US right now are not the most important economic issue...
Assertion is not argument.
http://crfb.org/sites/default/files/primary_numbers.pdf
Argument by assertion is exactly what "Austrian" economists do...are you one of them?
Really funny, except NOT!
Also, the alternative is what? Obama listening to Krugman and never trying to reduce the deficit at all?
Where were the Tea-Partiers when Cheney said "Reagan taught us that deficits don't matter"? He should have added "when Republicans are in charge"
Team GOP has been throwing money out of the treasury windows for decades. Squandering it in good times and bad for oil subsidies and wars and tax cuts for the wealthy, but now that a Democrat is tossing money out the window to keep the economy from flatlining, suddenly one penny more would be too much.
And Obama hasn't been listening to Krugman. Krugman has been saying all along that the stimulus has been too small by half.
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2011/12/more-elitists-via-venn-diagrams.html
The U.S. federal government debt is now over $15 trillion dollars, or over $136,000 per taxpayer. Counting unfunded liabilities like Social Security and Medicare, it's over $117 trillion dollars, or over a million dollars per taxpayer.
http://usdebtclock.org/
On top of all that, Obama has proven to be more of a warmonger than his predecessor.
The conservative/liberal dichotomy is an illusion–a deliberate distraction. The most important political issues by far in these times are war and the economy. On one side we have the rulers, and on the other side we have the ruled.
You're mistakenly placing Paul among the other candidates - Ron Paul is not in favor of 'rewarding' anyone. People should be free to succeed or fail in the market place. Unlike Obama, Paul wasn't against the bailouts.
Every ill you spoke of, I'm all for trying to prevent and so are other libertarians. You're simply mistaking the 'R' after the name and thinking of George Bush.
Obama has more in common with the other republicans than does Paul. You're sleep walking.
I guess tomorrow never came, since this article never showed up.
You're going nowhere trying to say that Paul's economic ideas would be irresponsible - he al;ready predicted the economic collapse. His economics are untouchable.