Paul Krugman versus Sarah Palin

Paul Krugman is a Nobel-prize winning economist, professor at Princeton and columnist for the New York Times. His resume ticks all the right boxes and demonstrates that he socializes with all the right people. He is part of the Ruling Class, the progressive elite that runs America.

Sarah Palin has not won the Nobel Prize, has a journalism degree from a state university and writes on Facebook. She is a TV star and a best-selling author, but she lives in Alaska. Her resume ticks none of the right boxes and she definitely does not socialize with the right people. She is part of the Country Class, the majority of Americans who do the work, create jobs, get things done and keep America running so that the elites can be supported by their efforts.

Sarah Palin was excoriated mercilessly by the Ruling Class for saying that there were death panels in Obamacare. While denying categorically that there were death panels in Obamacare, the Democrats quietly took that part of the law out. Now, Paul Krugman has called for putting them back in and has basically said that of course in socialized medicine you absolutely have to have death panels and higher taxes.

Nat Hentorff summarizes the facts of the case:

Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winner in economics and an influential New York Times columnist, also has a blog, "The Conscience of a Liberal." On ABC's This Week (Nov. 14), during a discussion on balancing the federal budget against alarming deficits, he proclaimed the way to solve this problem is through deeply cost-effective health care rationing.

"Some years down the pike," he said, "we're going to get the real solution, which is going to be a combination of death panels and sales taxes." That would mean the U.S. Debt Reduction Commission "should have endorsed the panel that was part of the [Obama] health care reform."

Sarah Palin was one of the first, and the most resounding, to warn us of the coming of government panels to decide which of us - especially, but not exclusively, toward the end of life - would cost too much to survive.

She was mocked, scorned from sea to shining sea, including by the eminent Paul Krugman for being, he said, among those spreading "the death penalty lie" as part of "the lunatic fringe." (Summarized in "Krugman Wants 'Death Panels,'" Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, Nov. 15.) Soon after he had left the ABC studio, someone must have alerted Krugman that - gee whiz - he had publicly rooted for death panels!

Swiftly, on his blog, Krugman admitted he had indeed said those dreaded words, but:

"What I meant is that health care costs will have to be controlled, which will surely require having Medicare and Medicaid decide what they're willing to pay for - not really death panels, of course, but consideration of medical effectiveness and, at some point, how much we're willing to spend for extreme care."

"Extreme care," Professor Krugman? To be defined by government commissions, right?

Noel Sheppard of media watchdog Newsbusters was not fooled by the professor's attempt to extricate himself from embarrassment.

"As the government has deep budgetary problems," Sheppard reminded Krugman, "the cost-benefit analysis will naturally morph toward financial restraint thereby further limiting a patient's options and therefore his or her rights."

Are these Obamacare cost-benefit boards and commissions - for example, the so-called Independent Payment Advisory Board penetratingly judging Medicare's cost-effectiveness (without judicial review) - not going to determine whether certain Americans are going to continue living?

'Fess up, Krugman, you owe Sarah Palin an apology for so often scandal-mongering her.'

Krugman apparently is used to saying that of course there must be death panels, but he forgot he wasn't supposed to say so openly on TV because the Country Class is known to watch TV. He appears to be a shameless liar and a defamer of Sarah Palin and he should be denounced up and down all over the media. But he won't be. Of course not. He is part of the Ruling Class after all.

I don't know. Sarah Palin grates on my nerves from time to time. Maybe she is as dumb as a bag of hammers. Maybe she is too uneducated to be President. Maybe she is all that they say she is. But the problem with this argument is that people like Paul Krugman would be better choices to run the government and I just can't see how that could be true.

Krugman and his ilk are arrogant and ideologically driven. They are not thoughtful or willing to change their minds on the basis of empirical evidence about what works and what does not. They remind me of nothing so much as the "looters" in Atlas Shrugged. And they are bent on imposing a political system on Americans that the majority of Americans don't want.

What a choice! I'd prefer a third alternative than either Obama or Palin. Couldn't Paul Ryan run? If Mike Pence runs he would be terrific. But Palin might beat them. And if it comes down to it and there is no other choice, I'd say that America would be better off with Palin. That is less a ringing endorsement of Palin than a complete and utter lack of confidence in Mr. Death Panel and his tax-and-spend, liberal fascist friends.