Andrew Sullivan thinks that President Bush’s discussion of the budget reflects either a deliberate choice to say things he knows not to be true or such a profound disconnection from reality as to raise questions about his fitness for office:
… if this is the level of coherence, grasp of reality, and honesty that is really at work in his understanding of domestic fiscal policy, then we are in even worse trouble than we thought. We have a captain on the fiscal Titanic who thinks he’s in the Caribbean.
I’m glad to know that Mr. Sullivan has (finally) noticed. But I agree with Brad DeLong in thinking that Mr. Sullivan owes an apology to Professor Krugman, who has endured 3 1/2 years of abuse from Mr. Sullivan and his friends as punishment for having noticed the disconnection between Mr. Bush’s stated fiscal worldview and reality 3 1/2 years ago.
Author: Mark Kleiman
Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out.
Books:
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken)
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist
Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993)
Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989)
UCLA Homepage
Curriculum Vitae
Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com
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