Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

It has struck me for a while that rhetoric on the right sounds increasingly like that of Stalinist purges, or maybe even a better analogy China's Cultural Revolution: the accusations of villainy ever wilder, the circle of non-villains ever smaller 2/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Aha. This Jonathan Bernstein piece on GOP vaccine craziness is very good, and formulates cleanly something I've been trying to get clear in my own mind: why the crazy keeps intensifying 1/ https://t.co/k6fq85jIMF — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

I was rejected by Harvard; many years later, receiving a job feeler, had the urge to write back "Dear Harvard, as you know I receive many qualified applicants ..." — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

But only the incompetent are wanted, because you can't trust the loyalty of anyone with a reputation to lose 3/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

I mean, I'm sure that there are people at the Mercatus Center who occasionally get their facts right and would be willing to align themselves with Youngkin's campaign 2/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Youngkin taking on Stephen Moore as economic advisor is another example of a point I've tried to make on multiple occasions: although there are plenty of conservative economists, the modern GOP only wants cranks 1/ https://t.co/Z1RbPGUFEZ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

RT @Claudia_Sahm: seeing breathless coverage that new child tax credit is a mess -- some people who need it won't get it and some who don't… — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Just putting this out here for reference https://t.co/625D8XwWWt — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Of course, being anti-vax is even worse: it's being pro-death without any justification at all 9/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

So invoking personal choice and "freedom" to justify refusing to take the pandemic seriously was disastrously bad policy. Unfortunately, it was also politically successful, because the deadly effects weren't highly visible 8/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

So why did South Dakotans make this choice? The answer is that they DIDN'T make this choice — because when you refuse to wear a mask or social distance, the lives you sacrifice may not be your own 7/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

So loss of life worth ~ $10 billion — which is 17% of SD's GDP, far bigger than any plausible estimate of growth advantage 6/ https://t.co/19hJu68iw1 — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

This comes from looking at the wage premium workers demand for high-risk jobs, so it's not an arbitrary govt measure 5/ https://t.co/IBAkJNKeJ3 — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

But was this worth the death toll? Let's be conservative and say that 1000 additional SD residents died bc of refusal to take Covid seriously. How should we value that? Standard value of a life is ~$10 million 4/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

But didn't SD do well economically? A bit, maybe: 3/ https://t.co/5mBQkkEHX3 — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Is this a cherry-picked comparison? I don't think so. Oregon has 5X SD's population, suffered 2800 deaths compared with SD's 2000 2/ https://t.co/Nfnf4Y7gyz — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Thinking some more about South Dakota, whose governor is a right-wing hero bc the state ignored Covid risks — and suffered 4X as many deaths as San Francisco, which has ~ the same population 1/ https://t.co/Gq55jmrnTu — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

De facto this means huge aid to poorer states, on the order of 15-20 percent of state GDP. That's OK! But what's not OK is these states denouncing Big Government and claiming to be self-reliant 8/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

(I excluded DC and VA, because of all the federal facilities located there). But the basic story is that residents of, say, WV or TN collect Social Security and Medicare just like residents of NJ, but pay much less in taxes 7/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

I did a scatterplot for a Boston Fed conference a couple of years back: 6/ https://t.co/Rr3qXYZfI1 — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Federal tax receipts, however, are strongly linked to income. So the feds spend about the same per person in poor as in rich regions, but collect far more revenue from rich regions 5/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

The social insurance programs spend slightly more in low-income regions, because some things like Medicaid and food stamps are means-tested. But broadly speaking they spend about the same amount per capita everywhere 4/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Beyond that, many people still don't seem to realize where federal spending goes. The federal govt is basically an insurance company with an army: nondefense spending is mainly Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid 3/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

One source of confusion is that correspondents are thinking only about spending, not net transfers — spending by DC minus taxes paid 2/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

I've been getting some mail — some of it puzzled, some angry — over my factual statement that urban states subsidize rural states. So maybe some explanation is in order 1/ https://t.co/Gq55jmrnTu — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Why do politicians still demagogue like it's 1975? https://t.co/2RlSinJ7GG — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

So Kristi Noem is basically boasting about killing 1500 people, 1 in 500 of her state's residents. 2/ — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

I saw someone mention this, and had to check it out. San Francisco County and South Dakota have roughly the same population; SF has had 559 total Covid deaths, SD 2039 1/ https://t.co/Nfnf4Y7gyz — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

Q is "best response to whom?" Impt to point out that Vance types have no policy answers and in fact are making working-class lives worse. But pointing out hypocrisy isn't a competing alternative; it's complementary. — PolitiTweet.org

Paul Krugman @paulkrugman

But anyway, the answer to Vance's question is obvious 6/ https://t.co/TdMDD8DycH — PolitiTweet.org