Nemo's cousin!

Krugman's "50 Hoovers" = pure partisan propaganda = steaming pile of horse manure...

"Higher taxes and less spending at the state level - what Krugman called the Fifty Herbert Hoovers." - CR

CR, I think you are only half right. Krugman has no problem with higher taxes. All he cares about is higher spending at every level of government.

The solution is obvious: The states need to be able to print their own currencies.

What ever happened to raising taxes on the high income and wealthy ?

Like reinstating the pre-Reagan tax rates ...

all hail Nemo

Nemo can eat 50 eggs.

Nemo can list the fifty states in under two minutes too.

ok...everyone back on their meds.

Krugman, while probably smart about something in economics just doesn't understand the details of government budgets, debt and the particulars of who buys the debt, especially on the state level.

Here's the thing that sucks for the most part; no amount of government layoffs is going to solve any budget problem at all. You could lay off every single state employee in California and there would still be a shortfall, but knowing that, you can't say that some of the fatty parts of the state government need some trimming nor that taxes are unacceptable. Does Krugman really believe that a state can service 8% + bonds at 2 billion dollars? He's delusional.

Higher taxes and less spending at the state level - what Krugman called the Fifty Herbert Hoovers

Alas in Hoover's time the government was less than half the size it is today relative to GDP and wasn't hemorrhaging money even before it got into the Depression (correct me if I'm wrong).

It seems that simple logic would suggest that the ability to productively increase the size of the government and deficit spend is in part a function of that government's current size and credibility.

Obama simply hasn't inherited the same sort of situation that Hoover and FDR.

To use Buiter's term - the US today may have vastly less "fiscal spare capacity" today than it did then.

Last I checked the history books, the consequences of excessively loose fiscal policy can be quite dire.

I thought that Montana, North Dakota and one other state were still solvent.

50 State currencies. Now there's a concept.

"How much is that?"

"2 Quarters"

"Is that Indiana Quarters?"

"That what you got? Indiana Quarters? It's 3 Indianas"

"How about North Dakotas?"

"It's one. And don't ask, we're not even taking Californias."

Poitically, I don't think they get away with TARPing 40 insolvent states.

It's probably more like bond guarantees by Treasury or reinsurance from a government-established monoline. Let 'em try to print their way out of it like good little banana republics.

I am too small minded not to go "Whoohoo!" at a hat tip on a CR post...

Whoohoo!

It's probably more like bond guarantees by Treasury or reinsurance from a government-established monoline.

'Cause everybody knows that bond insurers never actually have to pay out.... I'm pretty sure it's been proven.

If HH had remained President instead of FDR, we may have had a much better country than we do today, as the necessary reforms to the country may have been made. But we will never no.

Instead we got FDR, who prolonged the Depression until he was bailed out by WWII. In the interim, he put in place many of the programs and policies we are paying for today.

If we'd had another Hoover term we'd had an American Hitler or Stalin... my father remembered seeing marches by the 'Bund' [American Nazis] and the 'Wobblies' [IWW - Communists] in the Midwest in the 30s [he was a teenager back then]. He knew a number of families sympathetic to one or the other. FDR whether 'effective' or not at least neutered BOTH movements.

That was - if anything - the lasting legacy of FDR is he short circuited the more extremist elements of both the right & the left. Took away their fuel [hopelessness].

This is what is happening throughout the country. You don't need to read Krugman to figure this out. California and New York are the biggest disasters in the nation, and there are a host of other states in dismal shape as well. Has anyone contacted Larry Kudlow or the other bulls on Wall Street to tell them the sad news about the pathetic condition of the states?

I think the people who complain about FDR want another Hitler or Stalin today, just aligned to THEIR ideology.

+1

Has anyone contacted Larry Kudlow?

Good luck getting a word in...

Just a minute... Herbet Hoover was the guy who embarked on massive spending and stimulus to help the economy (thereby deepening and lengthening the depression). It sounds like these state governors are anti Hoovers.

Obama Follows in Hoover’s Footsteps | OpenMarket.org

I'm with dryfly.

I saw governor Patrick on the boob tube last week, and it reinforced my opinion he was a pretty good choice. He realizes that a big part of his job is reigning in fellow democrats. Otherwise we'd look like any other singe-party state.

Even with the tax increases, were still a fairly low tax state, believe it or not. Our property tax rate is like $14 per $1000, sales tax was 5%. just raised to 6% (I think), state income tax is 5.2%. Our property tax rate was 13.50 or so, but my town just had a referendum and voted to raise it.

Plus, our congress people did really well on the stimulus. For FY 2009 my rural county of 150,000 got as much of the infrastructure money as San Diego.

And we actually came up with a pretty good health care fix, at least as good as a single state could come up with.

I like living in a place where people are embarrassed if the family down the street can't afford medical insurance.

BobinMA,

I don't know about being universal health care being all that good of an idea for the USA. Medical costs and doctors' incomes started to go up dramatically only after Medicare was launched. I suspect that increased govt funding of health care in the US, together with the power of the doctor lobbies, means that more govt intervention here will only lead to even more spending. And we already get less per $1 spent on health care (measured by something like life expectancy) than just about any other country. But I know this topic can become a tiresome field for political partisans to endlessly declare their tribal affiliations, so I will say no more.

I am shocked, shocked I tell you, to learn that compulsory health insurance in MA didn't solve all their budget problems.

Krugman expounds on subjects from global warming to state politics and lots of other things he knows little about but has certain opinions. He should stick to his specialty, which is little x-y line graphs drawn on napkins.

@lama - Hoover himself had a number of ideas which FDR gets credit for...the policies which he is maligned for are those of his Treasury Secretary - austerity measures.