The Republican Clown Show Continues: No, These People Should Not Run Our Economy Weblogging

Paul Krugman on the marconomics of Marco Rubio:

More Marcoeconomics: No, that’s not a misspelling of “macroeconomics”. Matt O’Brien beats me to it: Marco Rubio’s SOTU response also included a shout-out to Say’s Law:

Every dollar our government borrows is money that isn’t being invested to create jobs. And the uncertainty created by the debt is one reason why many businesses aren’t hiring.

I know where he gets this stuff: it’s what the Heritage Foundation guys were saying four years ago.

It was obviously wrong even then: we have an excess of desired savings over desired investment — that’s why the economy is depressed! — so it makes no sense to assume that government borrowing must crowd out private investment dollar for dollar, or indeed at all.

But some things have changed over these past four years. Back then, the Heritage guys, Niall Ferguson, etc. made a prediction: those government deficits supposedly competing for funds with business would send interest rates soaring. Instead they hit record lows. And we also have evidence on what happens when government try to slash deficits in a depressed economy….

Contractionary policy has proved contractionary…. Rubio has embraced an economic doctrine that was fairly stupid to begin with, and has produced ludicrously wrong predictions these past four years; this on top of accepting a completely bogus story about how we got into this mess in the first place. The GOP’s savior!

Note that the full Says' Law--what Rubio is peddling--says not just that fiscal policy has no effect on production and employment, but that monetary policy has no effect on production and employment either.