Reality is full of inconvenient truths. And facts (as comedian Stephen Colbert famously said) have a known liberal bias. Which explains why policy-deficient Republlicans react accordingly. Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman this week reflected on the GOP's continued insistence on believing in -- or at least spreading around -- sheer fantasy. In his New York Times column, Krugman in particular used Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) as an example of this.
Krugman first reflected on how newly minted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) now takes credit for months of national economic resurgence, when before the fall election, McConnell and his brethren were blaming President Obama for the nation's supposed economic malaise.
Yet, suddenly and according to Majority Leader McConnell, the economy has been surging because "the expectation of a new Republican Congress" spurred the boom -- which has been going on since the start of 2014. The US created 3 milion jobs in that time, more than in any year since Bill Clinton was president. Krugman dubbed McConnell's new rhetoric a retooling of the notorious "voodoo economics" of the 1980s, when Republicans began claiming, against all logic and actual fiscal analysis, that cutting already historically low taxes would magically increase tax revenues, when what actually resulted were huge new deficits beginning in the Reagan era.
Because McConnell has to reach back in time to claim credit for Democratic Party actions he and his party then refused to support with their votes, Krugman said the current GOP approach isn't just voodoo economics -- it's a voodoo time machine.
According to Krugman, Ryan latest rhetoric makes use of his party's continued reach into paradoxical political posturing:
At this point we have multiple independent confirmations — most recently from Gallup — that Obamacare has dramatically expanded insurance coverage. So what do [Republicans] say now? The law “will collapse under its own weight,” says Representative Paul Ryan, the new chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.
Speaking of Mr. Ryan: Almost four years have passed since he and many others in his party lambasted Ben Bernanke, then the chairman of the Federal Reserve, for policies that they claimed would lead to high inflation and “debase the dollar.” The inflation never materialized, and the dollar proceeded to strengthen, but Mr. Ryan gave no sign of having been chastened — and many conservatives, including favorite intellectuals like Niall Ferguson of Harvard, became “inflation truthers,” insisting that the government is hiding price rises.
In short, you can't believe a word that Republicans like Ryan and McConnell say. Because they make stuff up to suit their pre-existing world view -- a world, ironically, that doesn't exist but that they shamelessly seek to make us believe in.