Oracle smack down: Krugman vs. Laffer

[Jim Lane]

3. You're painting with too broad a brush.

The Clinton administration moved the budget into surplus and did begin paying off the accumulated debt, until Dim Son turned a record surplus into a record deficit.

More broadly, the debt burden -- total accumulated federal debt expressed as a percentage of GDP -- was declining fairly steadily from the end of World War until Reagan took over. If our last three Republican presidents had continued that decline, the debt would be gone by now. If they'd merely curbed their deficit spending to align with GDP, the debt would be several trillion dollars less. Your indictment of "our politicians" really applies only to Reagan, Bush, and Bush.