Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Sunday, May 27, 2012

Krugman on Fiscal Phonies

Krugman said it


Mark Thoma blogged it


Roubini retweeted it.


and John Ballard thinks it's worth reading...



Both Mr. Ryan and Mr. Romney, then, are fake deficit hawks. ... Still, Mr. Ryan and Mr. Romney are playing to a national audience. Are Republican governors, who have to deal with real budget constraints, different? Well, there have been many claims to that effect; Mr. Christie, in particular, has been widely held up, not least by himself, as an example of a politician willing to make tough choices.


But last week we got to see him facing an actual tough choice � and aside from the yelling-at-people thing, he proved himself just another standard fiscal phony.


Here�s the story:... Mr. Christie has been touting what he calls the �Jersey comeback.� Even before his latest outburst, it was hard to see what he was talking about... Yet Mr. Christie has been adamant that ... this makes room for, you guessed it, tax cuts that would disproportionately benefit the wealthy.


Last week reality hit:... the state faces a $1.3 billion shortfall. ... New Jersey, then, is still in dire fiscal shape. So is our tough-talking governor willing to reconsider his pet tax cut? Fuhgeddaboudit. ... So much for fiscal responsibility.


Will Mr. Christie�s budget temper tantrum end speculation that he might become Mr. Romney�s running mate? I have no idea. But it really doesn�t matter: whoever Mr. Romney picks, he or she will cheerfully go along with the budget-busting, reverse Robin Hood policies that you know are coming if the former governor wins.



There's more at the link, but that's the meat of what he said. 



1 comment:

  1. Krugman's analysis is deep on the surface, but way down deep it's pretty shallow because of what he does not say. He does not talk of President Obama saying on the campiagn trail that, "I've cut taxes on small business eleven times," or that "No one has cut taxes more often for the middle class than I have." He doesn't talk about Obama's plan to cut the corporate tax rate to 25% with ofsetting loophole eliminations "to be named later." He doesn't talk about the fact that Obama, even at this late date, has no comprehensive tax plan of his own to replace the Bush tax rates which expire the end of this year.
    This is not to defend Romney, but when you say "Fiscal Phonies" and talk only about Republicans... That is nonsense. I'll buy the title if you include both sides in it.

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