NY Times Columnist Sees Gloom in America's Future

washingtonpost.com
NY Times Columnist Sees Gloom in America's Future
Reuters - Tuesday, September 16, 2003; 6:34 PM
By Mark Egan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - President Bush is an incessant liar bent on destroying America's social safety net, central bank guru Alan Greenspan should shut his mouth on issues unrelated to monetary policy and the U.S. media have done a terrible job of keeping the public informed.

If those opinions seem stark, they are meant to be. The New York Times pays op-ed columnist Paul Krugman to ruffle feathers. The Princeton University economist has been writing for the Times since 1999 -- work now compiled in his latest book "The Great Unraveling."

In it, Krugman says Bush lied during his 2000 presidential campaign, lied once he took office, turned a record budget surplus into the biggest deficit to line the pockets of the rich and abused the public's patriotism after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"Bush is a leader of a movement that wants to smash the system as we know it, the social contract, the safety net that was built up since Franklin Roosevelt," Krugman said in an interview late on Monday before a party to launch his book.

He believes no U.S. president has lied as much as Bush, who he says has fibbed on everything from taxes to the case for war against Iraq. "Certainly there is nothing in modern American history that resembles this."

A White House spokeswoman said she would have no immediate comment on Krugman's charges.

Krugman said he misses the honesty of Ronald Reagan, the last Republican president to slash taxes. Reagan had "irresponsible fiscal policy," Krugman said, but at least it was based on the "crazy theory" that tax cuts for the rich would trickle down to help the working man.

"The Bushies just say black is white and up is down," Krugman said of the current president. "The Orwellian character of these people is very disturbing."

Greenspan gets poor reviews from Krugman too.

"Alan Greenspan exceeded his brief," Krugman said, calling the Federal Reserve chairman's backing of Bush's tax cut plans before Congress an abuse of his office. "That's a violation of trust," he said, adding, "Alan Greenspan should apologize."

Krugman also has little time for how the media has done in covering Bush, including reporting by the Times.

"There's a confusion between objectivity and even-handedness, they are not the same thing," Krugman said. "If Bush said the earth was flat, the reports in the mainstream media would say, 'Shape of the Earth: Views Differ."'

While some critics dismiss Krugman's views as inflammatory, his book shows many of his predictions have come true, especially those about the nation's budget. And that makes his ultimate prognosis of the nation's fiscal outlook chilling.

"I think the United States is setting itself up for a Latin American-style financial crisis," he wrote in the book.

If Bush loses his job in the 2004 election, Krugman said, the day may yet be saved. But if he wins reelection to the White House, an economic meltdown will become "inevitable."