'The Party of Fiscal Responsibility in Action'

Paul Krugman:

The Party of Fiscal Responsibility in Action: One of the greatest confidence tricks ever pulled in American politics was the way Republicans managed, for a while anyway, to convince centrists that they were apostles of fiscal responsibility. Paul Ryan presented budgets that combined huge tax cuts for the rich with not quite as huge benefit cuts for the poor, added some magic asterisks — basically deficit-increasing redistribution from the have-nots to the haves, with added fraudulence — and received awards for fiscal responsibility.

Anyway, at this point we have evidence of what such politicians actually do in office, thanks to the many US states where Republicans control both the governor’s office and the legislature. And the result is an epidemic of fiscal crisis, despite a recovering economy. Yes, some Democrat-controlled states are also having problems. But they didn’t go around pretending to be the nation’s fiscal saviors, and the biggest state controlled by Democrats, California — which was supposed to be a basket case — is in quite good fiscal shape.

And yes, I think this observation is a lot more important than Marco Rubio’s personal financial difficulties, although those are pretty bizarre.