September 6, 2014

Paul Krugman: Medicare Spending Is Down Sharply

Since the mainstream media is mum, and even liberal MSNBC is mostly silent, I thought I’d share a little tidbit about health care spending. Over the last few years, overall health care spending has slowed dramatically, and now we find out Medicare is spending $1,000 less per beneficiary than originally projected by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Paul Krugman says this is a really big deal (and it would seem so based on that statistic alone), and he calls it the Medicare Miracle.

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January 19, 2014

The Rich Are Rich Because They Deserve It? Krugman Responds To Brooks

Is the affluence of the wealthiest Americans entirely earned, or is there a level of luck, timing, and in some cases, family inheritance involved? Or to ask it a different way, can people honestly make the case of one human being that is deserving of such massive wealth (like that of the .01%) on the merits of his or her productivity? Is there any single human being who deserves to be worth more than the combined wealth of millions of fellow citizens?

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October 11, 2012

I’m Not Going to Play the Semantics Game, Mitt Romney is a Liar

In his Wall Street Journal piece, (“Obama and the L-Word“), Daniel Henninger says “liar” is a “potent and ugly word with a sleazy political pedigree.” He says calling someone a “liar” crosses a line and it “suggests bad faith and conscious duplicity.” Crosses a line? Sure, if you are lying about someone lying. But calling someone a liar “suggests bad faith and conscious duplicity”? Well yeah, that is the point isn’t it?

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October 9, 2012

Paul Krugman: It Is The Job Of The News Media To Report Falsehoods

The media’s unwillingness or inability to consistently fact-check politicians and other high-profile newsmakers, is one of the primary reasons this blog exists. The Left Call is not a fact-checking site, but I do my best to represent the facts and then tell it as I see it. Yes, I have liberal bias, but I do not have an “us” vs. “them” style agenda. My goal is not to defeat Republicans or defeat conservatives. My goal is to promote and achieve civil rights, equality, tolerance — In other words, freedom and liberty for all.

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August 16, 2012

There Are No Reasonable Republicans In Washington D.C.

Paul Krugman has a short piece titled “Reasonable Republicans?” where he makes a point that I’ve made in the past, that there are no reasonable Republicans serving in office. That’s not to say there are no reasonable Republicans at all, just that they all exist outside the beltway. They might be former aids to past Republican presidential administrations or they could be ex-congressman, but they all have one thing in common, they are no longer serving, and they are no longer considered part of the Republican establishment.

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August 3, 2012

Paul Krugman: Neither candidate is offering a realistic tax plan

Running for office, especially president, has become more about the sport of it, more about the person running, and less about the country. Because of this we get fiscally reckless tax policy from both sides of the isle that panders to an ignorant, self-absorbed public. It’s easy to call for tax cuts. It’s weak to call for tax cuts when you know taxes need to be raised. At least on some level President Obama recognizes this with his call to raise taxes on the top 2%. Mitt Romney however, is completely delusional on tax policy. The idea that you can severely cut taxes and make up for it by closing loopholes and growing the economy is ludicrous. It’s what you say to people when you are more concerned with winning a job and less concerned with serving the country.

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