Akvod said:
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Personally? Yes I am against extending benefits to 126 weeks. But that is not what I was saying here.
What I have said is that this article opens my eyes to how much of a political hack Krugman is (or at least can be), and that I had prior to this respected him as someone I disagree with but whom was reasonable and worth considering. That unfortunately is no longer the case.
Why has this article changed my mind?
1) Krugamn happily explains to the reader that normally jobless benefits terminate after 26 weeks and that right now the average unemployment lasts 35 weeks. What Krugman doesn't say is that the current duration of benefits is already extended past the normal 26 weeks to 99 weeks in the states with >8.5% unemployment (and 93 weeks or more everywhere else). In short we are already well beyond the average duration of benefits and nearly 4 times the 26 weeks he implies to his readers the current duration is. This isn't the kind of missing context that he simply forgot to give, the whole article is crafted to attack the right and republicans specifically for blocking the extension and this impression that they need to be extended is central to that idea, it is in fact the crux of the issue. And since he can't achieve that goal nearly as effectively if people know that jobless benefits already are lasting for just shy of 2 years he misrepresents the truth.
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/11/06/unemployment-extension-adds-up-to-99-weeks-of-benefits/
2) Krugman says "By the heartless, I mean Republicans who have made the cynical calculation that blocking anything President Obama tries to do including, or perhaps especially, anything that might alleviate the nation’s economic pain improves their chances in the midterm elections. ", ignoring the fact that Republicans have said, and are still saying that they are willing to support and vote in favor of extending benefits if we will simply find the money in the budget to cover the costs associated with doing so. And in fact a GoP bill was put forth to use unallocated funds from the Stimulus and has received zero backing from Dem leadership. Considering how dire Krugman and others have made this issue out to be, and considering Obama supported and signed the Pay-Go provision..you would think this would be a reasonable request, no? Well apparently not, because Krugman neglects to mention it (presumably because Krugman personally disagrees with Pay-Go).
3) Next, Krugman rails against Sharron Angle (ie Krugman writes "By the clueless I mean people like Sharron Angle") for making the case that unemployment benefits are seen as preferable to getting a job for some people. But in doing so he ignores that this view is hardly the exclusive domain of the right and instead focuses his ire only on members of the GoP. Just look at Obama NEC director Larry Summers who has made the exact same arguments Krugman attacks Angle for:
"To fully understand unemployment, we must consider the causes of recorded long-term unemployment. Empirical evidence shows that two causes are welfare payments and unemployment insurance.
[. . .] by providing an incentive, and the means, not to work. Each unemployed person has a "reservation wage" -- the minimum wage he or she insists on getting before accepting a job. Unemployment insurance and other social assistance programs increase that reservation wage, causing an unemployed person to remain unemployed longer.
[. . .] Unemployment insurance also extends the time a person stays off the job.
. . . Another cause of long-term unemployment is unionization. High union wages that exceed the competitive market rate are likely to cause job losses in the unionized sector of the economy.
. . . There is no question that some long-term unemployment is caused by government intervention and unions that interfere with the supply of labor."
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Unemployment.html
4) At the end of an article spent laying into the GoP he finally acknowledges that there are Democrats who take issue with these benefits. But he doesn't enumerate their reasons and attack and/or berate them as he does with Angle and the GoP in general. In fact they aren't every categorized as part of the "coalition of the heartless, the clueless and the confused", they are left to a passing mention at the end of the article and spared the insults leveled at people who are apparently much more outrageous because they have the gall to have those views while also having an (R) next to their names. Based on the structure of the article, this is presumably because Krugman thinks by ridiculing the GoP he can instill in those Dems who side with the GoP some desire to abandon their positions in order to continue to avoid those insults in the future.
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In total it's a transparently partisan attack piece that not only neglects to inform the reader of key information that could change their view on the bill currently being discussed, but actually weaves the information it does give the reader in a way that leads them into believing benefits are currently only 26 weeks so that he can juxtapose this number with a 35 week unemployment average to paint the grisly picture he wants them to see so he can jump up and down shouting about evil republicans who want to hurt the poor and kill kittens.
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