<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" ><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;"><div>A friend recommended this article. Beyond depressing.</div><div> --Jenifer</div><div><a href="http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/">http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/</a></div><div><br></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 10px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 15px; "><span class="timestamp published" title="2010-11-10T13:43:14+00:00" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: normal !important; white-space: nowrap; color: rgb(168, 24, 23); border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; "><span class="date" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 1.1em; color: rgb(128, 128, 128); ">November 10, 2010, <em
style="font-style: normal; text-transform: uppercase; ">1:43 PM</em></span></span></span><h3 class="entry-title" style="margin-top: 4px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 3px; margin-left: 0px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: 23px; line-height: 1.133em; font-family: nyt-cheltenham-hinted-1, nyt-cheltenham-hinted-2, georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-weight: normal; "><a href="http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/10/unserious-people-2/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to Unserious People" style="color: rgb(0, 50, 91); text-decoration: none; ">Unserious People</a></h3><div class="entry-content" style="margin-top: 0px; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 10px; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); line-height: 15px; "><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; ">OK, let’s say goodbye to the deficit commission. If you’re sincerely
worried about the US fiscal future — and there’s good reason to be — you don’t propose a plan that involves <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/11/us/politics/11fiscal.html?hp" style="color: rgb(0, 50, 91); text-decoration: underline; ">large cuts in income taxes</a>. Even if those cuts are offset by supposed elimination of tax breaks elsewhere, balancing the budget is hard enough without giving out a lot of goodies — goodies that fairly obviously, even without having the details, would go largely to the very affluent.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; ">I mean, what’s this about? There is no — zero — evidence that income taxes at current rates are an important drag on growth.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; ">Oh, and they’re talking about
raising the retirement age, because people live longer — except that the people who really depend on Social Security, those in the bottom half of the distribution, <em>aren’t</em> living much longer. So you’re going to tell janitors to work until they’re 70 because lawyers are living longer than ever.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; ">Still, I guess this is what it takes to get compromise, if by compromise you mean something the center-right and the hard right can agree on.</p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.4em; line-height: 1.5em; "><strong>Update</strong>: <a href="http://www.fiscalcommission.gov/news/cochairs-proposal" style="color: rgb(0, 50, 91); text-decoration: underline; ">It’s here</a>. And it really is that bad. The idea that co-chairs of a commission whose
charge is fiscal sustainability should take it upon themselves to (a) declare that federal revenue must not exceed 21 percent of GDP — that’s right, putting a cap on receipts and (b) call for reducing the top rate from 35 to 23 is just awesome.</p></div></div></td></tr></table><br>