KRUGMAN DISCOVERS BUSH DISHONESTY

Dear Mr. Krugman,

Thank God THE NYTIMES has you, the genius Ivy League Ph.D. economist, on the job. On 9/10/04 you reported to us your latest brilliant discovery, namely, the Bush Administration has been less than completely honest about budget numbers. In truth, your pathetic hatred (to use Tucker Carlson's words) of Republicans led you to yet again gleefully point out what would be obvious to your average orangutan. Yes, it is true that Bush, and, now hold on to your seats, most politicians, are not the most straight talking people in the world.

One reason for this, apparently unknown to Mr. Krugman, is that their customers, i.e., voters, are not so smart. In fact most voters don't know a single thing about economics, most can't even tell you who the Vice President is, and this is to say nothing of their knowledge about the nuances of foreign policy. Almost half, for example, still think there is a direct connection between 9/11 and the war in Iraq. In this environment a politician knows that advertising will sell better than cold hard facts.

Take the problem of John Kerry's foreign policy. He is the most anti military living Senator; yet has had to, most of the time anyway, lie and pretend to be in support of the war in Iraq simply because focus groups tell him it sells better. Hard core Democrats, like those who were delegates at his convention, had to lie too and pretend that they supported Bush's war when they were as anti war about Iraq they were about Vietnam. To his credit Kerry's honesty gets the better of him sometimes and he will occasionally rail against the war but that, to the unsophisticated voter, just makes him look like a flip flopper and that in turn causes Kerry to go back to lying.

Take the problem of John Kerry's domestic policy. A Democrat is nothing if he can't promise more programs to buy more votes, but it is hard to keep promising more when the gov't has provided more every year for 200 years. A Democrat begins to look like a junkie, a dishonest one at that, more than an honest politician.

It is especially hard to be a promising Democrat when you have attacked the Republicans for running deficits as Kerry and Krugman have. It is easy to attack about deficits because focus groups say they are perceived as bad. But to be honest about them, i.e., to eliminate them which theoretically is exactly what Kerry wants, you would have to raise taxes $4500 per family in American. Does anyone think Kerry is honest enough to propose raising taxes by that much when his Party exists exclusively to the extent they are dishonest enough to trick people into believing that programs are free or, at best, are paid for by other people?

If Krugman could get over is pathetic hatred for Bush he might propose a balanced budget amendment to end the budget problems, and politician's lies, he pretends to care about so much. But he would never do this because Democrats don't really care about deficits and in fact did not support a balanced budget amendment when they had the chance. So in the end Krugman lies as much as the politicians he rails against.