Paul Ryan Once Loved Keynes

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Richard Nixon once famously proclaimed that "We are all Keynesian's now." This article (via Mark Thoma) illustrates how Paul Ryan loved Keynes in 2001 when he argued that tax cuts were necessary to stimulate the economy that was in a mild recession. Keynes, of course, proposed something similar for economies that were in recession. Governments should run deficits during a recession to compensate for spending cuts by consumers and/or business. Paul Ryan embraced that idea warmly in 2001 when he was advocating for the Bush tax cuts. The GOP will embrace the devil in order to cut taxes for their campaign contributors. They love deficits when they result from tax cuts for the super rich.

Some you may recall the Bush road to the presidency. The US budget was in surplus during the campaign and he argued that we should give the money back to the taxpayers. He changed his tune after he won the election and he used the Keynesian argument that tax cuts were needed to stimulate the economy.