Greenspan, Part 2

Paul Krugman, in today's New York Times (hidden by those fuckers at TimesSelect), blasts Alan Greenspan for being a moral coward (my term, not his).

I don't always agree with Krugman, though I did admire his "send Bill-O to Darfur" campaign (though the fundraising for that was probably slowed by the fact that donors could not just pay for a one-way trip). This time, I think he is skewering someone who badly needs it. It's easy to criticize when the folly of a particular policy has become apparent over time, which is what Greenspan is doing. It is a lot harder to criticize a popular policy before it is obvious or before it becomes politically easy to do so.

It is especially easy to criticize when one has left office and has no responsibility for cleaning the bloodstains from the carpet. Waiting until after the evil deed is done and the corpse is cooled before saying "this was not a good thing to do" is belated honesty at best.

Especially after Bush started his overseas adventures, it was clear that his penchant for tax cuts was a really bad idea. War is expensive and that the Republicans refused to recognize that fact is inexcusable. That the party of "fiscal responsibility" opted for massive deficit spending was hypocritical to a legendary degree. None of this is exactly rocket science.

Republicans stood aside and cheered as Bush carried out the two policies that he is good at: Cutting taxes and killing people. Greenspan kept his mouth shut.

Those on the Right (and I include Greenspan) who are now saying that the tax cuts (and the war) were bad ideas and that they were always against them are nothing more than moral cowards. They could at least take some responsibility for enabling the Chimperor in his policies of pillage and burn.

Let's be clear about this: Republicans have forfeited any claim they once had for being the party of fiscal discipline. Reagan and both Bushes ran huge deficits so they could give tax cuts to their supporters while passing the bill to the unborn generations. Bush the Last has been particularly aggressive in this regards, his "economic success" is only benefiting the wealthy, the economic boom of his Administration is confined to those who do not need it. It has not trickled down, the people who do the work that makes society function are not feeling the good times, they are getting squeezed.

Krugman has it right, but he could have concluded his column by stating the obvious conclusion:

Greenspan is a moral coward.