Krugman on debt and the deficit

For me, the 2008 election turned for the most part on the general unfitness of the GOP, and more specifically the insistence of John McCain to extend and make permanent the Bush tax cuts, in the face of overwhelming economic evidence that they were bad for the country. My primary concern was the negative impacts of the tax cuts on skyrocketing federal debt, and consequently on the value of the dollar, interest rates, and the threat of inflation. (I mostly left social concerns about rising inequality, falling health care and educational standards, etc. to others, since my general progressiveness was somewhat embroynic.) I still consider public and private debt to be an enormous threat to our way of life in the coming years, which is why I was furious about TARP when it was announced, and why I opposed the auto bailouts. (For the record, the stimulus package is an entirely different story, given the economic recession.)

In any case, given my relatively recent interest in all this, I'm compelled to consider the contrary position of our newest Nobel Laureate in economics, Paul Krugman, who argues that advanced countries (including the US) have survived these kinds of debt-to-GDP ratios in the past, even as he points out that if you are upset about the debt and the deficit, it's Bush you need to be pissed at, not Obama.

In any case, when a guy as smart as Krugman says he's worried that the deficit isn't high enough to get us out of this slump, it makes you wonder. Yes, the debt is real bad, but that's not Obama's fault, and there are good reasons to allow for the possibility that additional deficits aren't the biggest danger.