How to Kill a Recovery

A couple of delicious Paul Krugman quotes:

Republicans believe, or at least pretend to believe, that the direct job-destroying effects of their proposals would be more than offset by a rise in business confidence. As I like to put it, they believe that the Confidence Fairy will make everything all right.

But there's no reason for the rest of us to share that belief. For one thing, it's hard to see how such an obviously irresponsible plan - since when does starving the I.R.S. for funds help reduce the deficit? - can improve confidence.

do you remember the lavish praise heaped on Britain's conservative government, which announced harsh austerity measures after it took office last May? How's that going? Well, business confidence did not, in fact, rise when the plan was announced; it plunged, and has yet to recover. And recent surveys suggest that confidence has fallen even further among both businesses and consumers, indicating, as one report put it, that the private sector is "unprepared to fill the hole left by public sector cuts."