Jeffrey Sachs Accuses Paul Krugman of Being a Closest Republican

Jeffrey Sachs has a long argument that can be basically summed as suggesting that had we relied more on increases in public investment than on tax cuts four years ago, this smarter fiscal stimulus would have had more bang for the buck in the short-run and been better for long-term growth as well. A lot of us were saying the same thing four years ago. The sad thing about this post was that it was designed as an attack on Paul Krugman for being a crude Keynesian. I know Paul is a big boy who can ably defend himself but has to remember that Paul was saying the exact same thing four years ago. It was the Republicans who were advocating tax cuts and yet Jeffrey teamed up with Republican Joe Scarborough recently to attack Paul for advocating any form of demand stimulus. It’s funny because Scarborough has vacillated between arguing for austerity versus arguing for smart fiscal stimulus. We saw the exact same thing from the Team Romney economists who claimed they were for policies that both promoted short-term stimulus and long-term growth. Yet when push came to shove, their policy recommendations continued to be tax cuts for the rich, which of course is what Jeffrey is not calling for.