Paul Krugman bashes Paul Ryan for yet another “con job”

[DonViejo]

The New York Times columnist also says Ryan and other GOPers show "fake compassion" for the poor

ELIAS ISQUITH

It’s been a while since the New York Times’ premiere liberal columnist, Paul Krugman, had reason to flay one of his favorite targets, chief GOP wonk and former vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan. But with the GOP suddenly talking about how much it wants to help America’s poor — a development Krugman calls “fake compassion” — the award-winning economist and best-selling author once again has a reason to take Ryan to the woodshed.

In his latest column for the Times, Krugman writes that while Ryan’s new attack on liberalism — a lengthy report, supposedly on the efficacy of government-funded anti-poverty measures — is less of a sham than efforts form years past, the Wisconsin congressman has still ultimately produced “a con job.”

Krugman applauds Ryan for “citing a lot of actual social science research” but insists that the GOPer has falsely represented the conclusions of most of the research he cites. “In some cases,” Krugman writes, “Mr. Ryan and colleagues outright misstate what the research says, “drawing outraged protests from a number of prominent scholars about the misrepresentation of their work.”

But where Ryan’s report really goes wrong, Krugman argues, is in its ideological assumptions — chiefly, it’s unexamined belief that anti-poverty measures make the poor lazy and drains them of their ambition. “Mr. Ryan would have us believe that the ‘hammock’ created by the social safety net is the reason so many Americans remain trapped in poverty,” Krugman writes. “But the evidence says nothing of the kind.”

more
http://www.salon.com/2014/03/07/paul_krugman_bashes_paul_ryan_for_yet_another_con_job/

[n2doc]

1. It's not bashing to tell the unvarnished truth

And the truth has a liberal bias.