Paul Krugman wasn't actually writing directly to the Catfood Commission II (speaking for myself, I decline to use a superlative being used by many to describe the Congressional fool's gathering because the superlative implies higher quality). But, his message, looking at the debacle in Europe, is very clear: austerity is a loser.
In his column "Legends of the Fail", he writes:
The other thing you need to know is that in the face of the current crisis, austerity has been a failure everywhere it has been tried: no country with significant debts has managed to slash its way back into the good graces of the financial markets. For example, Ireland is the good boy of Europe, having responded to its debt problems with savage austerity that has driven its unemployment rate to 14 percent. Yet the interest rate on Irish bonds is still above 8 percent — worse than Italy.
The moral of the story, then, is to beware of ideologues who are trying to hijack the European crisis on behalf of their agendas. If we listen to those ideologues, all we’ll end up doing is making our own problems — which are different from Europe’s, but arguably just as severe — even worse.[emphasis added]
That is what the fools of the Catfood Commission, most recently aided by the Stupendously Stupid Sixty Democrats and billionaires who love austerity, don't seem to grasp. The entire political establishment is in the grip of the phony debt and deficit "crisis" when we should actually be spending MORE MONEY to get us out of the real economic crisis: the lack of good-paying jobs.
I'll repeat what I've been saying over the past couple of days on radio shows--I am not a religious person but I get down on my knees every morning and prey that the Catfood Commission collapses in failure. It will be a great thing for the country.