Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Letter to the editor:

Since when have we been austere?

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The Sun recently published column by Paul Krugman titled “The 1 percent’s solution” wherein he argues that there is a need for increased spending by the government.

He uses ambiguous references, but the topper was a sentence that I could not let pass, that says: “What is true, however, is that the years since we turned to austerity have been dismal for workers …”

My question is, when this did happen? I must have missed something?

The federal government’s budget has not decreased, and in fact has accelerated to the point that the United States needs to borrow massive amounts of funds to sustain current levels of funding and owes a mind-boggling $16.8 trillion.

The administration and Congress can’t even agree to a decrease in the inflation accelerator, much less to existing funding levels.

If Krugman and his Keynesian friends could demonstrate (with facts) how and when increased spending by the government would benefit the economy, they might have an argument to sway me, but until then, I’ll have to agree with former Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., who wrote “We must also demonstrate our commitment to rebuilding our economy, fixing our regulatory system, and getting the government out of the private sector as soon as possible. The world needs to know that we are serious about reducing our budget deficit and cleaning up our other messes.”

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