Krugman: Deficits and Deceit (Rips Greenspan and Repukes)

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/04/opinion/04krugman.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=

Four years ago, Alan Greenspan urged Congress to cut taxes, asserting that the federal government was in imminent danger of paying off too much debt.

On Wednesday the Fed chairman warned Congress of the opposite fiscal danger: he asserted that there would be large budget deficits for the foreseeable future, leading to an unsustainable rise in federal debt. But he counseled against reversing the tax cuts, calling instead for cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Does anyone still take Mr. Greenspan's pose as a nonpartisan font of wisdom seriously?

When Mr. Greenspan made his contorted argument for tax cuts back in 2001, his reputation made it hard for many observers to admit the obvious: he was mainly looking for some way to do the Bush administration a political favor. But there's no reason to be taken in by his equally weak, contorted argument against reversing those cuts today.

To put Mr. Greenspan's game of fiscal three-card monte in perspective, remember that the push for Social Security privatization is only part of the right's strategy for dismantling the New Deal and the Great Society. The other big piece of that strategy is the use of tax cuts to "starve the beast."

The GOP puppet masters may have painted themselves into a no-win situation. They will try to blame the Clenis, but that is becoming an increaseingly hard sell.

. . .

And the consequence of the failure of the starve-the-beast theory is a looming fiscal crisis - Mr. Greenspan isn't wrong about that. The middle class won't give up programs that are essential to its financial security; the right won't give up tax cuts that it sold on false pretenses. The only question now is when foreign investors, who have financed our deficits so far, will decide to pull the plug.

and mendacious partisan whoring.

Greenspan is just the latest. After years of ass-kissing by the media, he's finally being called what he is -- a partisan hack. But the question remains, why do so many people lay down for this administration? Why are so many people willing to trade the fawning coverage they've received for decades just to stay in the good graces of this criminal gang?