Tuesday, February 18, 2003

Get your Paul Krugman here. Some quotes:

Surely you aren't going to let rosy budget projections snooker you, yet again, into supporting irresponsible tax cuts? By now you know that this administration always projects big budget improvement two years ahead; but every six months it marks its projection down another $140 billion or so, blaming outside events. Independent analysts, who take into account the stuff the administration pretends doesn't exist — the war, the alternative minimum tax, and so on — think we're looking at deficits of 3 or 4 percent of G.D.P., maybe more, for the next decade. And then it will get much worse.

Properly measured, the U.S. fiscal system is already "unstable" — and the new Bush proposals would quickly push it past what you called the "point of no return."

No doubt you're under intense pressure to be a team player. But these guys are users: they persuade other people to squander their hard-won credibility on behalf of bad policies, then discard those people once they are no longer useful. Think of John DiIulio, or your friend Paul O'Neill. It's happening to Colin Powell right now.

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