Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

January 9, 2008

In offering advice to elected officials who are too eager to follow it, New York Times economic columnist Paul Krugman constantly invokes FDR?s New Deal as the epitome of economic wisdom.

Thus it?s noteworthy when Krugman recently wrote that ?the New Deal wasn?t as successful in the short run as it was in the long run.? The reason for this, Krugman asserted, was that FDR was ?too cautious? regarding government spending and regimentation.

Krugman is still distorting the truth. Numerous economic studies ? such as one published in the August 2004 Journal of Political Economy by UCLA professors Harold Cole and Lee Ohanian ? document that the New Deal prolonged the depression by nearly a decade. What restored our economic health was radical post-war reductions in government spending.

The beginning of economic wisdom is to ignore everything said or written by Paul Krugman and his ilk.

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.