in a column for Monday's New York Times titled An Unserious Man.
Krugman begins by noting that it is the "commentariat" which
years ago decided that he was the Honest, Serious Conservative, whose proposals deserve respect even if you don’t like him.
To which our Nobel Laureate responds simply
But he isn’t and they don’t. Ryanomics is and always has been a con game, although to be fair, it has become even more of a con since Mr. Ryan joined the ticket.
Award-winning economist that he is, Krugman then totally takes apart Ryan's plan by the numbers. You need to read what he offers, which leads to a conclusion and a question:
Over all, the effect would be to increase the deficit by around two and a half trillion dollars.
Yet Mr. Ryan claims to be a deficit hawk. What’s the basis for that claim?
He gets to Ryan's lame excuse that the only reason he included cuts to Medicare is that the President included them, even though, as Krugman notes,
the fact is that without those savings his budget becomes even more of a plan to increase, not reduce, the deficit.
But then comes the kiss of death, the final brief paragraph of the column:
So will the choice of Mr. Ryan mean a serious campaign? No, because Mr. Ryan isn’t a serious man — he just plays one on TV.
Read the Krugman.
Pass it on. Widely.