I feel like I never stop learning from Paul Krugman. His latest blog postdiscusses the fact that the "fiscal cliff" of automatic spending cuts and tax hikes should be welcome to conservatives if they are consistent. After all, they will significantly reduce the government deficit and all we hear from Romney/Ryan is how debt is such a big problem. Krugman makes another important observation: Republican agreement that the fiscal cliff will hurt the economy is actually agreement with the Keynesian view, i.e. reduced gov't spending and increased taxes reduces aggregate demand. Why won't Republicans go along with this deficit reduction? First, because it doesn't reduce the deficit in a way that gives the lion's share of the benefit to the super-rich. Second, and this is me not Krugman talking (although I imagine he'd agree), conservatives don't actually care about the deficit,as deficits have increased under Republican presidents during the last 30 years. If you can cut taxes for the rich and cut spending on everyone else, who cares about the deficit?
Adam Weiss blogs at politicalcreativity.net