Paul Krugman on Republican Economics

Economist Paul Krugman

I'm amazed how relevent this 2015 article remains:

ARCHIVE: In 2008 before George Bush left office, in reaction to the economic meltdown his administration laid the groundwork for the bailout that Obama continued and expanded preventing another Great Depression and saving the US auto industry, among many other things. I'm not a fan of Bush, and even if you blame him for the crisis, clearly a government bailout was the correct response, and he deserves credit for doing the right thing, given that in almost every way you measure a countries economic success, the US economy has recovered.

Though there's still plenty to do to create more jobs, more economic equality and more opportunity, things are far better today than many of us expected. I for one, was sure we were heading into another Great Depression, because inexplicably Republicans, once Bush left office, did everything possible to undermine what Bush had started and Obama was following through on. I mean virtually everything Republicans predicted and complained about was wrong. Every Obama action they slowed or blocked (like creating hundreds of thousands of jobs to fix our roads, bridges, schools, the power grid, etc.) literally slowed the recovery and hurt average Americans. It's a fact (almost a miracle, actually) that over unprecidented Republican opposition and obstruction—to every action the Obama administration proposed—a depression was prevented and we have steadilly recovered.

Even today, contrary to all the economic evidence available to anyone who cares to look, Republicans continue to erroneously claim our economy is a mess that only they can fix, if we just let them drive for the next 4 years. In the Fox News debate, when anything of economic substance was discussed, these false Republican claims were loudly repeated, and tired, discredited "Trickle-Down" economic policies were proposed as if we haven't seen these exact policies fail time and again during the Bush years, and currently in several Republican controled states, like Kansas.

So whether or not you understand economics, whether or not you like or trust Obama and Democrats, know that Republicans worked tirelessly to prevent the recovery and they continue to misrepresent the undeniable economic progress made under Obama, so they can scare you into voting for them next year.

As usual, Paul Krugman describes the situation as only he can, with facts and wit.