I Think Paul Krugman's Support of Hillary Rodham Clinton Has Just Come to an End

Ezra Klein:

EzraKlein Archive | The American Prospect: CLINTON VS. ECON. Asked about the gas tax holiday and the universal opposition from economists, Hillary Clinton said, "Well, I'll tell you what, I'm not going to put my lot in with economists." Regular readers know I have my own moments of econo-skepticism, but I really wouldn't advise folks to throw in with political hacks instead....

[T]he gas tax stuff shouldn't be thought of as economists versus everyone else. It's economists, environmentalists, energy experts, budget types, and anyone who has spent a couple minutes thinking through the implications of the policy. It's simply a bad idea, albeit one that polls well, so Clinton is running with it. That's experience you can count on, or something.

The terrifying thing is that it is still overwhelmingly likely that HRC economic policy would be better than the economic policy of John McCain...

Comments

[Maynard Handley]

"It's simply a bad idea, albeit one that polls well,"

And yet Bryan Caplan is considered a bad guy. Go figure.

[save_the_rustbelt]

While it may be a bad idea, the hysterics of economists almost makes me want to support it.

And the whole "voters are idiots" theme is getting rather tiresome. This coming from a bunch of tenured eggheads.

[tedb]

STR: Yes, the "voters are idiots" theme is tiresome. Unfortunately, any reasonable appraisal of American politics shows that it is true and undeniable. If there was ever any doubt, the 2004 reelection of Bush proved it. The only question is what we can do about it.

[jerry]

A pity that Barack Obama voted (three times) for the gas tax suspension before he voted against it.

I find the cries of the Kleins and DeLongs that are infrastructure will fall apart to be bizarre at best, and knowingly disingenuous at worst.

[I must say that I am surprised that you have become a shill for ExxonMobil on this. I had thought better of you.]

Our infrastructure needs far more than three months of taxes, and yet, we've still managed to do nothing about it for years. If we can print the money for Iraq, and if we're in a recession, than I suspect a nice bit of Keynesian government spending towards infrastructure will work out very nicely.

I just think to all the economists promising us the free ice cream of outsourcing, and the free ice cream of offshoring, and the free ice cream of free trade and our subsidization of other countries labor by chucking labor gains that our parents died for and I think that we would've done a lot better if the Brad Delongs that graduated in 1982 would've taken up physics or sci fi reading instead of econ.

Your free trade ice cream melted quite along time ago. I think we should've listened to the low information unionists instead.

[howard]

i don't find it terrifying that clinton is doing what she thinks she needs to do to win; i do find it terrifying that prof delong finds it terrifying that she would still be much better than mccain

[That is a statement about McCain...]

i find it terrifying because it demonstrates that even a guy as smart as the prof is subject to the purism problem: yes, clinton has said a number of offensive things this primary season, but it takes a complete loss of judgement not to understand that however offensive are some of the things that clinton has said (and the same is true, to a lesser degree, of obama), she is ultimately likely to be a decent president if she comes through, whereas there is no question that mccain will be an apallingly bad president.

holier-than-thousim cost humphrey the '68 election and set in motion 40 years of republican dominance: i was one of those holier than thou sorts, but at least the issue was complicity in vietnam, not a frickin' gas tax holiday. do we really need to go through this nonsense again when we finally have a chance to end the era that nixon's election began?

[jerry]

To paraphrase an apostate ex-liberal over at Kevin Drum's how many "liberal" economists that dislike the gas tax plan are also against minimum wage and rent control. Probably many to most of them.

I am still curious as to why I am told that competition drives prices down and yet this reduction in cost will not result in price being driven down.

[The McCain proposal: because it's a short-term price cut: a gas tax "holiday" for the summer. That's not enough time to build additional refining capacity, and then the incentive ends. There is no increase in competition.

For the Clinton proposal: it's not clear what it is--either it's the McCain proposal, in which case it is evil, or it's a relabeling of the "gasoline tax" as a "refinery tax," in which case it is simply pointless.]

If we don't have a free market, and if the demand of gas is not elastic, then why do we permit this portion of the economy to falsely pretend it is free? If the demand of gas is not elastic, and the market is not free, I think we need more regulation.

[Tuco]

McSame/Hillary 2008!

Find out exactly how much they care about your wellbeing here:

http://www.jabberwonk.com/flinker.cfm?cliid=13lkzo

[otto]

No - Krugman doesn't think a black man can win. He'll support HRC no matter what.

[Randolph Fritz]

Otto, are you telepathic? How do you have private knowledge of Prof. Krugman's inner thoughts?

Is it November yet?

[jerry]

Tuco, thanks, I'm getting 78 bucks back! I can use that for groceries too.

Admittedly, I commute quite a bit since the courts allowed my ex to move the kids out of state against the advice of experts like their own court psychologists, and the only job I can find is about 40 miles away.

I love experts, experts are so wise. Experts and Ph.Ds have offered the country so much wisdom over the years.

I think I'll eat another bran muffin. God bless the tenured. God bless the experts. God bless the economists who have never seen a "control" in their life and fancy themselves as physicists.

[Barkley Rosser]

howard,

Actually, there is an equivalent here to 1968. One of the clearer differences between Hillary and Obama is that she voted for Bush going into Iraq while he opposed it, and more recently, and seriously, she voted for a resolution for Bush to do what he wants in Iran, which Obama voted against, and more recently proposed some kind of pseudo-NATO for the whole Middle East, directed at Iran, and has threatened to "obliterate" the country if it attacks Israel with its nonexistent nuclear weapons that the NIE says it is not pursuing getting. Looks like quite a parallel to 1968 to me.

[jerry]

So Obama agrees with Clinton on obliterating Iran, he just doesn't want to talk about it.

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/5/4/95338/95060
Obama Agrees With Policy, But Decries Clinton Language On Iran Attack On Israel - TalkLeft: The Politics Of Crime

And here are four questions of ten that Earl Ofari Hutchinson would like Obama to answer. The first three touch on Iraq, Afghanistan, and Empty Suits.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/earl-ofari-hutchinson/ten-troubling-questions-i_b_94166.html

1. You stated that you were not in the Senate in October 2002 when President Bush rammed through Congress the resolution authorizing the use of force in Iraq. But you also stated that "perhaps the reason I thought it was such a bad idea was I didn't have the benefit of U.S. intelligence." This implies that you might have voted for the war if you had been in the Senate when the vote was taken. Why then do you condemn Hillary Clinton and other Senators who voted for the war authorization resolution when you admit the possibility that if you had been in the Senate you would have done the same?

2. As chairman of the Senate subcommittee on Foreign Relations you could have held oversight hearings, called witnesses and offered alternatives to Bush's disastrous efforts against A Qeada in Afghanistan. Your subcommittee held none and provided no alternatives to Bush policy that you condemn, why?

3. In the Senate you have one of the poorest attendance records, and you often simply vote present on thorny issues, why?

4. Senate Legislation was proposed to require nuclear giant, Exelon to make public disclosure of its radiation leaks. You did not fully support that requirement. Exelon has been identified as your fourth biggest campaign contributor. Why did you oppose the tougher regulatory proposal for Exelon?

[howard]

barkley, the difference is a little bigger than you suggest. were humphrey's only problem in 1968 that he supported the gulf of tonkin resolution, he wouldn't have had a problem in the first place. his problem was that he was the vice president of the united states, and therefore directly involved in 4 years of a failed expansion of the military effort in vietnam.

(indeed, i'm not normally much for counterfactuals, but it is my long-standing believe that had humphrey resigned from the johnson administration in december, 1967, and said "i have been on the inside and the policy is a failure," he would have rolled to victory, but regardless, gene mccarthy voted for tonkin. it made no meaningful difference in 1968 that he had. as to the broader point that clinton is instinctively more hawkish than obama, i agree that that's true, but beyond that, i point you back to my comments about purism in 1968: she is not a neocon and we shouldn't get confused about fundamentals.)

prof, my editing suggestion is probably implicit in my remarks thus far, but to make it explicit, "the terrifying thing is that however low my opinion drops regarding HRC and economic policy, i still understand how much better it would be than that of a mccain presidency."

[bigTom]

Jerry: No new refineries will be built. The oil companies know that oil is becoming scare, and hence oil products will be expensive enough that future consumer demand will support less, not more refining capacity. The age of oil is inexorably moving towards its gradual decline. We can either prepare for that change, or suffer from our ignorance.

[anne]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/29/politics/main4056059.shtml?source=RSSattr=Politics_4056059

April 29, 2008

Obama took a different view on the issue when he was an Illinois legislator, voting at least three times in favor of temporarily lifting the state's 5 percent sales tax on gasoline.

The tax holiday was finally approved during a special session in June of 2000, when Illinois motorists were furious that gas prices had just topped $2 a gallon in Chicago.

During one debate, he joked that he wanted signs on gas pumps in his district to say, “Senator Obama reduced your gasoline prices.”

[jerry]

bigTom, Brad, if we believe in Peak Oil (and I do), and we believe in Global Warming (and I do), perhaps we should be regulating the Gas market.... And engaging in a War on Oil (Usage.)

If they are not building refineries, and not looking for new sources, and not converting shale, and not looking for efficiencies, than I am not sure why they need the profits they can claim from blackmail.

Ah, where is Jimmy Carter when we need him, and does he insist on wearing his underwear over his clothes?

[Ken Houghton]

Jerry's point is re-made by Anne.

The difference between the McCain plan and the HRC plan is that HRC took a page from Ted Kennedy's work on NCLB: long after the gas tax returned, the refinery tax would abide, coming closer to balancing the budget.

[bigTom]

jerry: I see we are nearly on the same page after all: I see IOCs (International oil companies, such as Exxon, Shell i.e. public corporations) as mixed players. Mostly they are responding to -and trying to affect policies and projections in order to maximize shareholder value. I don't get upset when they make more money because the price has risen (except that I personally should have been smart enough to have bought more stock in them). I get upset when they try to deceive the public, for instance downplaying PO, and grossly exaggerating the minor supply bump that would result if they got their way on drilling restrictions etc. The issue of major tax breaks, and even windfall taxes should be independent from oil/gas taxes. It is disingenuous for some holiday opponents to argue that ALL of a suggested tax reduction would go to the oil companies, and none to consumers. The truth is that the break would be distributed among several economic entities: oil producers (mostly foreign), refiners, and consumers would all get a share of the $9B. From a purely economic nationalist perspective, the holiday is bad because some of our $9B will go to oil exporting nations. From the standpoint of the national economy it is a net loss for that reason. Where we get into trouble with politics, is that political posturing rarely quantifies gains and losses of proposed policy changes. Considering the mathophobia of most of the public, and of journalists in particular, this isn't particularly surprising. But the result is often bad policy for which net costs exceed or greatly exceed the benefits.

[Charles]

I don't know about Hillary Clinton, but Paul Krugman's support for Brad DeLong has ended. From his Conscience of a Liberal blog:

"I’m startled at Brad DeLong’s ignorance: he thinks there’s something new about science fiction novels where the science in question is economics."

Food fight!

[jerry]

"I must say that I am surprised that you have become a shill for ExxonMobil on this. I had thought better of you."

I am ashamed to say I am flattered. The evidence was that you thought about me not at all! :)

[The Probe]

>the hysterics of economists almost makes
>me want to support it.
>
so that's the collective noun for economists.

[DB]

Perhaps HRC is lining herself up in the queue for McCain's VP nominee?

[Robert Waldmann]

Let me quote Paul Krugman

"I’m startled at Brad DeLong’s ignorance: "

and

"Gas tax hysterics

OK, this has gone overboard.

Hillary Clinton’s proposed gas tax holiday is not, in my view, a good idea. But the furor over what is, when all is said and done, a small and temporary policy proposal is entirely disproportionate. What’s going on?

[snip]

The gas tax holiday is in this category. Economists really do know something about tax incidence that the laity don’t. So when a presidential candidate says something that conflicts with economistic wisdom, it becomes THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE EVER. Except, you know, it isn’t."

When I first read the post above, I surfed over to Krugman's blog to quote the shock at your ignorance. Then I decided to play it safe. Hell you are co-authors, you probably can predict his reactions better than I can.

I was a fool. Now no one will read this comment.

Now, for one thing, I agree with everything Paul Krugman wrote. A combined temporary gas tax holiday and excess profits tax would have essentially no effect on anything and is no big deal. Economists do get very enthusiastic on the rare occasions when we have a reasonable non-obvious argument.

Health care individual mandates are a bigger deal (although why doesn't Krugman ever mention that the Obama plan has a mandate for employers ?).

However, Krugman is not writing things which are true and which are very analogous to things he wrote in the past. For example, he said the Obama plan was OK and that campaigning against mandates is not. Now he doesn't mention that Clinton is campaigning against elite expert economist effetists. Promoting the idea that the experts don't know anything (all of them not just economists) is not a little deal.

I have no doubt that Krugman is partly motivated by two things. The Obama campaign said he flip flopped and questioned his integrity. Krugman is thin skinned compared to politicians and professional pundits (I mean he is a normal person). Worse Obamaniacs have been insulting him by e-mail for months. No normal person would admit that he was wrong about which candidate was marginally better under such circumstances.

Finally, I agree that Clinton is not helping McCain.
I think Clinton has helped Obama against McCain by pretending that it is a big deal. Journalists hammered Clinton the way they would never hammer McCain (oh by the way my post which you quoted at shrill blog was a deliberate attempt to get a link from you and it worked albeit not from this blog).

Anyway I have succesfully predicted Krugman's blogging and DeLong's linking, and misery me, I have no proof.