After reading Paul Krugman's New York Times Op Ed today, one is once again left to ponder, "what in the world were the Swedes thinking?"  Was the Nobel Prize in Economics selection committee comprised of DeVry graduates?

If Krugman is anything, he is consistent.  Has anybody so decorated made more bad calls on public policy and macroeconomics in recent history?  He's the Pittsburgh Pirates General Manager of Nobel Laureates.

His incorrectness isn't a recent phenomenon, either.  It dates, minimally, back to the early 80's when he was briefly a member of President Reagan's Council of Economic Advisors.  While there, he (along with Larry Summers) famously penned a memo predicting that the decline in inflation from the highs of 1979 thru 1981 was a "temporary aberration," and would resume with a vengeance—adding more than 5 percentage points to then current levels.  Not only did inflation never again reach the point it was when the memo was written, it actually declined by 4 to 5 points at its low.  That's right, future Nobel Laureate, Krugman, missed his inflation forecast by upwards of 10 percentage points.  Economists are generally shamed when such estimates are a mere few tenths of a point off the mark.

Fortunately, Reagan had the common sense to follow a different path.  President Obama would be wise to do the same.

Krugman, as most know, has been the "intellectual heart and mouthpiece" of the Big Government movement.  It was he who gave credence to the Left's call for a $787 billion "stimulus" package by arguing that such an amount was probably only one half to one third the total actually needed.

Needless to say, that theory has proven, by most accounts, to be wildly erroneous.  The economy's natural resiliency has allowed it to rebound, albeit several quarters later than would have been the case had the "stimulus" been pro-growth-oriented, rather than transfer-payment-centric (as advocated by Krugman).  It should be noted that the recovery has come with only about 11% of the "stimulus" having been spent (somewhere in the neighborhood of 1/20th to 1/30th what Krugman insisted was necessary).

In today's Op Ed, Krugman picks up on his favorite target, Reagan's economic policies.  It's no surprise that he would try to discredit Reaganomics, since Reagan's philosophy of limited government and personal responsibility is in such stark contrast to Krugman's statist view.

As is typical with Krugman, he puts his own unique spin on the numbers in order to support his ideology.  He trots out the tired argument that the wealthy benefited disproportionately because their real incomes grew considerably more rapidly than that of the middle class.  True, but needless to say, he ignores many less convenient truths.  The Left likes to disregard the fact that household wealth, a more comprehensive measure than income, was at all-time highs during the Bush years.  And, unemployment was at record lows.  As Reagan said, and all of us are learning the hard way, "the best social program is a job."

Krugman also says, "...most of whatever gains ordinary Americans achieved came during the Clinton years."  Fittingly, he fails to acknowledge that the advance was due to one of the greatest positive developments in personal responsibility in decades—Welfare reform—pushed by a Republican congress, and signed by the President.  Isn't it amazing that when opportunity and initiative collide, good things happen.

The most remarkable part of the Op Ed, however, is his screed against those who oppose the inclusion of a public option in the healthcare reform Bill.  Almost comical in his lack of awareness, he says, "Opponents of the option—not just Republicans, but Democrats like Senator Kent Conrad and Senator Ben Nelson—have offered no coherent arguments against it.  Mr. Nelson has warned ominously that if the option were available, Americans would choose it over private insurance—which he treats as a self-evidently bad thing..."  Well, da!!!  Could it be anymore self-evident?  Wouldn't you think that if proponents could point to just one government success story—that is one that isn't in jeopardy of bankrupting itself and the country, the general populace would be supportive?

This simply is no longer the era of the New Deal or Great Society.  The demographics don't support a further expansion of the social safety net, unless along with it comes the political courage to make major cuts in other areas.

Krugman plainly doesn't get it.  Like in the kids game, he is the last one to realize he doesn't have his finger on his nose.