Back from vacation in Puerto Rico, I sent the following letter to the Chronicle in response to this Paul Krugman article:

re:  No excuse for the economic situation

In his usual lament against any attempts at restraining the growth of government spending (there have been no true "cuts" proposed — only reductions in future planned increases), Paul Krugman contradicts a Nobel Prize-winning economist:  Paul Krugman.

Writing in Tuesday's column, Dr. Krugman states that "aid to hard-pressed state and local governments... may have mitigated the slump, but it wasn't the type of job-creation program we could and should have had."  However, in his blog "Conscience of a Liberal" in February 2009, Dr. Krugman described "aid to state governments" as "both fast... and effective", declaring that "the social value of this spending would be high."

It would seem that Dr. Krugman was for such "stimulus" before he was against it.

Sincerely,
Dave Smith
Houston, TX



By the way, a tip of the hat to Mickey Kaus at the Daily Caller for digging up the February 2009 Krugman blog posting, which is available here.