"What matters is whether a politician has good ideas."
In addition, are they prepared to act on them rather than get mired in the partisanship of supporting their party to the exclusion of what is best for the Nation.
"There are huge problems with U.S. policy on many fronts, but very few of these problems come from lack of good new ideas. They come, instead, from failure to act on what we already know – and, for the most part, have known for a long time."
Agree. But also believe we need some new ideas: how to actively resist and stall an administration that seems determined to dismantle the actual good that has managed to be implemented. And some new thinking on preparing for mitigation of the ever worsening consequences of climate chaos.
The ideas of the Father of the modern Democratic Party, FDR, still hold true. Let US return to those values.
DD
Manhattan
2
Under Obama the democrats had majorities in both houses and did not impliment the old (but good) ideas. First thing they should have done was to rid us of the filibuster- entirely. Then they could have implemented those ideas and appointed decent (very liberal) judges without Republicans and fake democrats interfering. Too bad. They missed there chance.
Democrats actually only controlled Capitol Hill for ONE single year, under Obama.
They used it to pass the Lilly Ledbetter act, increasing equal pay opportunities, and to pass the Stimulus, which turned Bush's downward spiraling -9% GDP, with 700,000 jobs lost a month, into a decade-long steadily growing economy - using very well-designed tax cuts for ordinary citizens and small businesses, combined with subsidies.
They then used all the political capital they had to pass Obamacare, which already saved hundreds of thousands of lives and insures 20 million more Americans, all while containing the foundation for truly universal healthcare, another fundamentally good idea.
They also doubled investments in clean energy, and obtained the first and historical global Paris Climate Agreement.
They obtained the historical Iran deal, ending its nuclear weapons building for at least a decade.
They strongly increased LGTB rights.
They strongly increased investments in science and the arts.
They expanded Medicare.
The saved the American auto industry.
And contrary to what you seem to like, they fully respected democratic process, without ending the filibuster.
And yes, they put two liberal Justices on the Supreme Court.
And they did all this notwithstanding tremendous and unprecedented GOP opposition and sabotage.
If you still want to call that "missing their chance", all I can say is that cynicism never helped us move forward, remember ... ?
1
Big fan of Rep. Tim Ryan (D Ohio), who is young, from a red state, yet seems to be able to take on the Republican agenda and Trump with genuine FDR style economic straight talk aimed at the working and middle classes. For those who don't know him there are segments on Youtube worth a look.
1
He's really great indeed!
1
One thing I have noticed is that the GOP always talks about a future where GOP policies will bring free lunch. What they have been selling is a future fantasy with no basis in fact. You can have more with less government and regulations. Just because there is no successful, industrialized government in the world that operates in this manner is no reason why it cannot work this way. Give the GOP power and this perpetual motion machine can be yours. And people buy it year after year. Regardless of results.
1
The Democrats need a higher purpose vision. They should go back to the Four Freedoms. Freedom of Speech, Freedom of worship, Freedom from want and Freedom from fear. Republicans have abandoned our constitution and bill of rights. Donald J Chaos & Co. talk of abrogating many of our rights regularly.
The media needs to comment on the vision thing and not sneer or tear down what has been successful in the past. Political office is not supposed to be the latest new and improved laundry detergent or shiny car. Good Americans can get behind a higher purpose message.
We need new solutions guided by good principles. Young Joe Kennedy's response to the state of the union speech was great. Simple, American values that any American can understand and stand up for. We need higher values and vision not more lies and fear mongering.
2
There are several things Mr. Krugman does not seem to understand: Without the whipping-boys, the Leftist loves to hate as well as exploit, the rich and the corporations, everyone would be poor; The accumulation of dysfunctional programs intended, ostensibly, to help those who cannot help themselves, have become disincentives to those capable of self-help and turned them into entitlement slaves; That universal health care in most instances, has not been successful in ensuring quality healthcare comparable to that of private enterprise; That environmental regulations have not improved the environment but have often shifted the damage from the US to other countries and put American workers out of work.
We, as a nation, need new politicians who are able to write legislation which includes carefully framed regulations which expire automatically if they prove to be deleterious.
I would like to see some real world evidence to back your statements. I have looked and cannot find any. None. This is the Right Wing saying, "Everything is terrible, just look around. Period."
Maybe he does not "understand" your hypotheses here because they've all been proven false for a long time already ... ?
Let's take universal healthcare for instance: could you please name ONE Western country that has it and that is yet having a LOWER healthcare quality than that in the US?
I'll answer in your place: no you can't, because it doesn't exist.
What you're saying here isn't fact-based at all, it's mere ideology.
And THAT is what the majority in this country is blaming the GOP of, you see? They're constantly spreading rhetoric that is simply false.
And if you believe that "leftist love to exploit the rich", could you please explain how under Obama and the Democrats, the rich became wealthier and not poorer, and we saw one of the longest periods of economic growth and job growth in history ... ?
And you obviously also already forget the bank bailout that Obama signed into law ... ?
1
Seems it really doesn't make a difference if we are talking about good ideas or new ideas, because there are plenty of great ideas that have been put in the closet because of politicians that don't want to take action on them. That is the problem. But what can one expect when the average IQ in Congress is 50, based on their year to date governance since our salacious, self-appointed 'genius' POTUS DT took office.
It is nice for you to blame Congress, leaving zero responsibility to the voters.
The Right has indeed been repeating the same thing for decades (and if you look deep enough, centuries). One reason among many being is that the Right goes with the psychological easy flow. Dislike of the new and foreign, preference for easy-to-understand standards of personal achievement like money, dislike of uncertainty turned into love of authority, these are the ways of the psychological easy flow.
When that naturally much stronger path is made immensely stronger by decades of concerted PR effort in all directions, with limitless financing (the Koch brothers are but one drop in the ocean), the psychological easy flow becomes the only groove.
While the preference for rationality and empathy becomes the uphill obstacle.
1
The bottom line should be whether a politician has effective ideas that can be put into practice and that Congress will vote for. That means we must elect a progressive Congress in 2018 and keep it in 2020.
The sad reality is that the days are gone when both parties had a mix of conservative and progressive members. The GOP has become a party of regression, so the Democratic Party must take the lead to solve our social problems, including healthcare, education and a decent standard of living for all.
3
A political party's success or failure in the next election depends on whether the public is still inthralled with outrageous and unscripted television and twitter feed. Once the public preference shifts to sane, mature decision making a party that can produce reliably sane and mature candidates might have a chance at winning control. It is debatable how much "control" republican leaders have of their flock.
The current President is more afraid of coming off as boring than anything else. Appearing to be a Willy Loman with inherited wealth and privilege seems to be keeping the public interest. Old ideas, young ideas, new ideas- what is required is shifting the gaze off the traffic accident and driving forward past it.
4
Pundits say what makes them the most money. If they can make more money by dumping on Democrats they will.
Doing what we know works is great but will run into resistance from powerful interests that make more money by not doing what works.
it's not about old ideas; it's about biographical baggage.
For example, in Northern California, consider 3 safe Democratic seats in Congress:
Nancy Pelosi (vote-counter, deal-maker, fund-raiser, leader)
Jackie Spear (called out secret harassment settlements)
Eric Swalwell (stepped up and ousted senior Rep. Stark)
Do they have major policy differences on economy, security, justice? Who knows? ... probably not so much. But what do voters want?
So....basically let's stick with OLD ideas that have FAILED (over and over) for liberals....I think Dr. Krugman here is calling for HIllary (age 74 in 2020) to run AGAIN for POTUS because "she's politically correct!" and "old ideas are best!". And lose again.
The definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over and expecting different results....
1
Even the premise of the OP-ED is not a new idea. Deploying known solutions is what American progressives were all about, ever since the end of the 19th century!
2
I fully agree. If it ain’t broken...
Question is how to counteract Fox News and ignorance.
Most of us who read P Krugman tend to be the “educated liberals”. We already know “trickle down” has not worked in the past and it won’t in the future.
1
What do you think about new legislation that would make all political campaign contributions illegal, as long as there are absolutely no exceptions.
I propose multiple tax operated TV stations with a free TV channel owned and paid for by the US government for each elective office where each candidate can queue up (or schedule) and then get equal (maybe 15 minutes or more) free TV air time, and then get back into line at the end of the line to do it over again, and again? Maybe a separate time (or channel) scheduled for each candidate each elective office. Maybe a separate radio/TV channel for all the presidential office contenders, another for all the US congressional candidates in each state, another for all the US senatorial candidates in each state, another for the state candidates in each region, another for the county candidates in each county, another for the municipal candidates in each city, another for the school board candidates, and etc.
I do not believe that the founders of this great nation could have visualized professional paid lobbyists, or people paid to professionally "petition the government" as we have now. With enough money, anyone or any citizen, foreigner, corporation, or business could influence (bribe) the US President, enough members of the US congress and the US Senate to create any legislation to do anything, such as the “Free Trade Agreements,” CFI Federal “Pay to Play” contracts, or the Solyndra “Pay to Play” government guaranteed loans!
1
Why did the US congress create and the US president not veto the "Oil Pollution Act of 1990" legislation that limits the ecological damage liability of BP (and other exploration companies) to $75 million?
This limitation of liability in this law encouraged BP to drill with reckless abandon since they are not responsible for any ecological damages that they cause beyond the first $75 million.
My guess is that the US taxpayer will be/is financially responsible for any damages greater than $75 million.
This legislation was also not in the interest of the US population!
The Gulf of Mexico crude oil leak at the BP drilling platform is mostly the fault of the US Congress that passed the 66 page "Oil Pollution Act of 1990" legislation (http://epw.senate.gov/opa90.pdf) that obligates US government to pay for all damages over and above $75 Million. I have read most of this bill. George Bush initially signed this legislation into law in 1990, then President Clinton signed the modifications to this law on Dec. 29, 2000 that reduced the penalties for spills and other disasters to a maximum of $75,000,000.00.
I cannot imagine any president signing this into law without some personal financial compensation for himself, since these exemptions only benefited the oil companies at the expense of the taxpayer, without some money changing hands ala "Chinagate" to the presidents and the congress!
What many people (especially on the right) often mean by "new ideas" are in fact old ideas, ideas that have been discredited in the past and long forgotten. You revive these old ideas, and they magically sound like new ones, because no one remembers that they were tried before and found not to work.
Often the best ideas are those that we keep discussing over and over, because we can never think of a really good reason to reject them.
1
One quibble: I do wish Mr. Krugman and other commentators would quit calling Medicare a single-payer system. In order to be fully covered for our medical costs, we seniors need to buy supplemental insurance, and by law we must have still another policy for drugs. Oh how I would love to have a true single payer system. The present reality is mind-bogglingly complex and expensive.
7
Professor Krugman, you are normally spot on, but your assertion that Apple was ahead of Android when in fact they are about five years behind was absurd.
That's not what he said.
He said that to remain competitive, Apple HAS to be ahead of Android.
Heres an idea. Find out how much tax revenue we need, and then figure out what percentage of total income, from both income and capital gains, we need to charge to get that revenue number. 23%? Okay, everyone pays 23%. No deductions, no credits, nothing. Everyone pays EXACTLY what they should and not a penny more or less. Make sure to cover good education, universal healthcare, and no infrastructure. Try to keep military spending down without losing supremacy. Oh, the number is 26% now? 26% is fine. It's all fine. Whatever the number is we all pay the same percentage. Which means the rich pay the lions share of taxes. Not as unequal as it is now, and far simpler.
1
That would lead to a regressive tax system, which punishes the poor. Your idea is not good nor new.
Focusing on the word "new" is pointless and splitting hairs. Yes there are plenty policies that exist elsewhere, but would be new if adopted here (i.e. universal healthcare). Although you can drop the centrist modifier "access," which in current use only means given the access to purchase insurance many cannot afford. Yes "new" can mean old ideas that were dropped, or ideas adopted elsewhere...so what? To many new to politics these rejected or elsewhere used policies seem new here.
Maybe Mr. Obama will come up with a second US birth certificate, different date, different location, different name, and run again and save us all. (I'm kidding, of course, and voted for him three times!) Let's go Michelle 2020!!!!!
3
The main problem with Democrats, is the messaging and the messenger. Democrats need someone who will boldly express, and articulate simply, good progressive ideas. Someone who will take the fight to the Republicans and expose the emptiness of their tired, ineffective ideas and philosophy. The press is intimidated by the constant barrage coming from Republican firebrands and it’s incumbent on Democratic candidates to aggressively fight back and call out the press on these issues. Obama did it to some degree while he was campaigning but, unfortunately, not much while governing.
2
I think we should stop complaining about messaging and messenger etc.
Fact is, Republicans built Fox News in order to construct an entirely fact-free "alternative facts" world, so no matter how good you are at "messaging", no political candidate will get inside that bubble if he isn't a Republican.
At the same time, Trump uses twitter to circumvent journalists doing their job and constantly spread propaganda directly to the GOP base all while occupying the entire 24/7 news cycle by the controversial character of his tweets. So here too, there's NO way to do a bit more "messaging", as a Democrat.
Fortunately, Obama just governed for 8 years, so all that "we the people" have to do is to start fact-checking his achievements, and then we'll perfectly know what Democrats stand for - and as Krugman remembers here, yes, they stand for all the good, evidence-based policy ideas (and their competent writing into law and implementation).
The only way to fight back against the massive GOP lies now is for us, ordinary citizens, to start engaging in real, respectful debates with GOP voters. Because THAT is the power that the Constitution gave us, and it's exactly what we need to reduce the influence of the Koch Brothers and other wealthy predators on American politics today.
I do agree when it comes to Obama and campaigning all while governing though. Yes, today that has become necessary, if you want your base to stick with you rather than fall for MSM cynicism, unfortunately ...
2
Democrats HAD Al Franken; His book was the most readable and informative of the three individuals with the potential to lead us out of this mess. (Franken, Saunders and Warren). And he probably wrote it himself.
1
An old idea that reduces inequality for hourly paid workers -- almost 6 in 10 Americans are hourly-paid -- is work-based organizations that elected their leaders and bargain contracts with bosses. Otherwise known as unions, it would be great if the Democrats on the national level could say that word once in a while. They like our money and our door-to-door operations in election years. In non-election years when in the public eye, they treat us like they're our ex-boy/girl friend: "Did you not get my break-up memo." So national Democrats, if your reading this, if you want the help of union activists, say the uncomfortable word.
6
Even if President Trump repeals President Clinton’s NAFTA and President Clinton’s PNTR for Communist China, those higher paying and taxable wealth creating assembly line manufacturing jobs are not coming back to the USA because those jobs and the manufacturing facilities are permanently relocated to third world nations where people will accept lower pay and benefits than US workers demand.
US citizens that knew how to manufacture things are now probably long gone and maybe even dead and buried.
US workers refused to work for the wages and benefits that Third World workers would gladly accept, so those manufacturing jobs and those factories are permanently relocated to those third world nations as economically required by President Clinton’s NAFTA and President Clinton’s PNTR for Communist China.
1
Any concrete example of Democrats "breaking up" with unions ... ?
Yes. And let's remember to vote in November.
One new idea: How about supporting science as generously as the federal government supported it in the 1960s?
5
Wow, this is surprisingly tone deaf and outlines the greatest challenge Democrats will face in the next election. Voters don't want another Hilary Clinton or another ritzy Yale educated wonk. They want someone who's plain spoken and offers solutions to problems real people face, like Bernie Sanders offered up. But we saw what the Democratic party did to him ... I guess they've learned nothing.
If the left or independent parties can't be bothered to learn, I'll just vote for Trump. Perhaps another slap in the face is just what is needed to move the progressive party forward.
2
It's only "tone deaf" if the only tone you want to year is that of Bernie supporters ... .
If you prefer to listen to proven facts, you'll remember, for instance, that Hillary won the primaries and then went on to get 3 million more votes than Trump. That perfectly reflects the fact that a majority in this country supported her policy proposals rather than Trump's.
The problem with Bernie supporters in this country is the same as the problem with Trump supporters: they're all living in their bubble, totally disconnected from how a democracy actually works.
So could you please explain how, if you prefer Bernie policies but a majority of Democrats prefers Hillary, somehow voting for Trump (= the exact opposite agenda) would help you achieve your policy goals?
How does voting for Trump get us closer to writing, step by step, Bernie ideals into law, and even faster than if you'd vote for Hillary, who actually shared the exact same ideals but simply warned us, courageously, that radical change in a democracy never happens overnight and is always, as history has shown, step by step change?
Any ideas ... ?
In the meanwhile, I don't think that slapping your best allies in the face, rather than your enemy, is an efficient strategy to move this country move forward ...
Coming from you?
Excellent points. Use what works, not what's new. Unless the new is a lot better than what already works.
1
DEM party et al need to decide on a more basic issue.
For whom do they serve?
The wealth of the Corporate/Investor class in the Top 20% or the Working class in the bottom 80% of Americans.
https://www.followthemoney.org/show-me?law-p=1&d-et=3#[{1|gro=d-eid
2
Jake Tapper of CNN has been promoting his book and pontificating a bit too much about a journalist's job. I heard him say his job is to be the antagonist, the adversary in his interviews. That is how news is created today.
When you need to create heat to appear to be doing your job, simple, boring facts and civil debate is not possible. The pundits say the Democrats have no new ideas as an easy, lazy way of saying we have no argument with their basic policies. The listener is left with a bad impression.
the Republicans on TV provide an endless stream of emotional sound bites - they are going to take your guns, they are destroying the meaning of marriage, etc.
So much easier to treat serious political issues as a coffee shop argument - no facts, no research, no homework for the media - Tapper, after all, had more important things to do, besides prepare for his job, like write a novel to promote far and wide.
3
The new ideas the Democrats need is how to express the old ideas in ways that convince the unconvinced, or motivate the unmotivated. How to put lipstick on a gazelle.
1
My fear is that the Democrats will, unfortunately, use some of the ideas that seemed to permeate their 2016 campaign - particularly the idea that straight white men - especially law enforcement officers - are the root of all evil in the world and that anyone who isn't part of the white male patriarchy (and I'm talking about you, too, privileged coal miners and Walmart stock clerks) is a hapless, helpless victim of same. In which case we have another four years of the disastrous Trump Presidency.
1
Those ideas only "permeated" the 2016 campaign because it's what Republicans told us that Democrats stood for.
All you had to do to discover that, once again, Republicans were lying, was to study the DNC campaign platform ...
What really matters is how you sell it. If you cannot sell your "good" ideas to the American public it doesn't matter how great they are, they ain't gonna' buy em'. Americans see the same old tired, boring, process and their eyes glaze over and all they hear is...same old garbage. It's not enough to have a great idea, you also have to be able to tell the people why the other sides ideas stink. This has to be done in some kind of NEW WAY! Why don't people vote? Tell us Mr. Krugman. Please tell us.
It's not new ideas the democrats need, it's Main Street ideas rather than Wall Street ideas.
18
Ed,
Yes, the standard humane Democratic message. Instead of tax-cuts for the rich tax-hike on the richest.
Raise tax on top 0.05-0.01% incomes to say, 50%. At that income level all special treatments of incomes such as carried interest loopholes & capital gain-reduction must end.
Cut payroll taxes on the first $10K to 1% & the second $10K to 2%. Rise the cap or eliminate it but cut again to 1% on over $150-200K to be less unpalatable to the rich.
This sort of revision on the current taxation benefits the country and hardly be a burden to any, I believe.
1
Unfortunately for good ideas, recent SCOTUS decisions, especially Citizens United, equated money with speech, which opened the flood gates and drowned our already weakened Republic. When these decisions were being written, dramatic dissociations between the will of the majority and the actions of our elected representatives were already apparent. I'm sorry to say, but "good ideas" as defined by Dr Krugman are meaningless under these conditions. The more relevant questions now: Can we still reclaim our democracy? Can we remain a union of 50 disparate states?
3
What Professor Krugman means when he says politicians should have "good" ideas is that politicians should have his [Paul's] "good Progressive ideas". Universal Health Coverage is a good Krugman idea. He uses the British NHS as an example. That's the NHS that demanded a child die on British soil rather than allowing the parents any rights to decide on another treatment option. Even the Pope intervened to no avail. The British Nanny State proved to be lethal.
But, what our good Progressive doesn't get is that Universal Health Insurance is not the same thing as Universal Health Care which, in turn, is not the same thing as Good Health Care - ask the young British couple about the quality of care of their son.
Too many Progressive "good" ideas are just wishful thinking, with more emphasis on the wishful part than on the thinking part. Krugman's Progressive colleague, Bernie Sanders, has a lot of wishful "good" ideas, too. But, when you tease out the details, the problems of implementation - more specifically the enormous financial costs - the "good" ideas don't look so good.
Speaking of Bernie and sneering, Paul, what's with that?
I'm living in Belgium now. Like most other European developed countries, it has universal healthcare.
All comparative studies have proven that these systems offer better healthcare at lower costs to more people than the US system.
That's why conservatives and progressives alike support them, in Europe, you see?
And you don't even have to look at Europe. Just look at the results of Obamacare, which insures 20 million more Americans than the previous system, all while curbing premium increases and federal HC costs ...
Studies show that if you add a public option and a little more subsidies so that those who have to buy insurance on the individual market but earn more than 4 times the poverty level can now afford to buy private health insurance too, and the problem is solved (without adding a dime to the deficit, of course, as Democrats tend to pay for their bills, contrary to Republicans, remember?).
So when Krugman is referring to "good ideas", he's most of all referring to ideas that have been proven to work, once correctly implemented.
That today only Democrats still defend such an evidence-based policies is too bad, as they don't have anything particularly "progressive" ...
5
Paul, perhaps you should have been a political consultant, it has been a long while since I have seen a better slogan for a candidate than "i don't have new ides I have GOOD ideas". It is a winner!
1
Regarding the "Big Sneer", as Prof K. calls it, given that three of the Biggest Sneerers in all of journalism toward Democratic policy ideas just happen to reside on the NYT op-ed page (Dowd, Douthot and Brooks), it seemed that Prof K.'s barbs were as much directed internally to the NYT as they were towards the media at large.
In fact, in her Sunday column, Dowd fired her first warning shot of the 2020 election against the Democrats when she sternly warned them against "moving too far to the left".
Prof K.s column is right on when he discusses the general loathing in the press towards policy ideas and discussion. Reflecting the commercial bias of its Big Five corporate-entertainment owners (Comcast, Time Warner, Fox, Disney and Viacom/CBS), political journalism is now largely an entertainment medium focused on sensationalism, gossip, personalities, scandal and conflict.
There is very little room in the cable TV landscape for serious policy discussion. What little policy coverage there is almost always revolves around the politics of the policy, not the ideas behind it ("Who wins, who loses?", "Who blinked first?").
Unfortunately, as Prof K. points out, Democrats with their constant focus on policy do not fare well in the modern media circus environment. Ideas are just not cool, exciting or profitable enough for today's entertainment owned-and-driven news media.
3
The GOP tax cut for the rich, the treatment of workers by monopolistic firms (no health care, low wages), and the export of entire factories by the rich should be a basic theme. Attacking Trump/GOP on their criminal behavior is icing on the cake.
2
All the new ideas in the world won't get us anywhere if the institutions of government are broken.
3
The phenomenon Dr. Krugman describes here reminds me of how many restaurants shape their menus/ambience etc to please restaurant critics, who, like the political journalists cited here, seem to expect to be treated to something new and unexpected at each venue. So many restaurant fads seem to target the tired palates of critics more than potenital new customers.
Yet look at the enduring popularity of a restaurant group like Hillstone - absolutely nothing new or flashy about their offerings, and there are waits for tables at 3 p.m.
1
My God! I would not miss this piece for the world. What an obscurantist!!! Krugman is totally stuck in the past. Two things:
1. New ideas are available and plenty. The establishment and its minions, like Krugman, control access to mainstream publications and that is why and how they do not know about new ideas. They do not want to know them. 2. New ideas appear as a result of the conservation of old mental structures in new and more powerful mental structures. What it means, Krugman, that you are not conserving anything, just holding on to emptiness. All systems, including systems of thought, cannot maintain status quo. They either evolve into new and more powerful ones or they disintegrate. You are this disintegration, Krugman. 3. The reason why the Democrats are criticized on new ideas is because they claim to be progressives. The Republicans are conservatives. So what's the point of blaming those who say they do not pursue change for not having new ideas about change? Think of it, Krugman, if you still can.
great line regarding Ryan being Gingrich with lowef BMI...and great political insights as usual, thanks Paul.
4
What the pundits want is new marketing that gives them a shiny new surface to give first impressions of at the level of a middle schooler.
3
Politicians don't need new ideas, and neither do the Democratic Party and Paul Krugman.
It is amazing how the news media will treat very often ideas from the Right as the way for the future, innovative,... when in fact those ideas are a return to the XIXe Century.
5
Exactement! Le mille-nuef-centieme siecle!
1
i nominate monopsony for word of the day
"On health care, we know perfectly well how to provide more or less universal access, because every other advanced country does it".
Paul is clueless as to why this doesn't work in the US.
A self-apparent reason why our next Democratic needs new ideas.
2
No, that's not a problem of insufficient new ideas; it's problem of a superfluity of republicans.
2
Alas, the Democratic Party is not in fact in need of new ideas, but rather, it is desperately in need of a spine.
Running as 'GOP Lite', or perhaps 'Non-racist Republicans' simply doesn't cut it.
How about: "We are finally going to get off our butts and work for the good of ALL the American people - not just the corporations that sent your good jobs overseas."
Working class voters believe that the Democratic President Bill Clinton (and his Labor Secretary Professor Robert Reisch) should say, "Once you were employed and were able to feed your family until I signed NAFTA into law and that economically caused your manufacturing job to relocate from the USA to Mexico because you would not agree to work for the same wages that Mexican citizens would work for."
Working class voters also believe that Democratic President Clinton can say, "Once you were employed and were able to feed your family, until I unilaterally created PNTR for Communist China and this economically caused your manufacturing jobs to relocate from the USA to Communist China because you would not agree to work for the same wages that Communist Chinese citizens would work for."
1
Here’s s new idea for the US: parliamentary government, a prime minister, and the end of two party rule. Our system, with its only choices being Coke or Pepsi, doesn’t work.
The fact that we have a sitting president who probably committed treason and that we won’t be able to get rid of him, no matter how damning Meuller’s findings, is proof enough that the system is broken.
4
I think it is OK for politicians not to have their own ideas, but I think he /she should articulate what ideas of other people he/she are going to pursue. The problem they very often don't, and Hillary is an example when she dismissed Swiss model as unrealistic for the US, and continue push for Obamacare despite obvious drawbacks.
1
I think it can be a craving for the new in style, not substance. I've been remembering, lately, SNL's imitation of the media fascination over Obama vs Clinton during the 08 primary. I was also struck by the NYT article on new moms running for office, and the point made that there's a craving for more real, informal politicians. Whatever it is, the voters clearly want change. True, what they -should- vote for is meaningful policy change. But they often can't recognize it, for so many reasons. And honestly, it's not like Democrats usually manage to pass the really great stuff. This is one of the lessons we need to learn from Trump's election--the voters want a change in style. There can be a positive version of that. And I do hope that it's possible to have more honesty in politics in the future, as another reaction to Trump.
1
I agree with Prof Krugman on this one. Politicians especially partisan politicians do not have to come up with new ideas. After being elected to public office they are pretty much set for life with tax payer supported salary and perks. After a term or two, politicians should go back to the area from where they were elected and become community organizers and experience life as an average citizen and think and hope new ideas will come to them. As an independent, I feel very few politicians are problem solvers. A handful of politicians who come with ideas to solve problems cannot muster enough votes to change anything. I disagree that the 3 systems that Prof Krugman argues work for Canada, Britain and Switzerland will work for the USA. These systems will not work for the US is because we are well known to permit self inflicted harm and everyone wants the cadillac of health care without accepting the care that the insurance companies will allow. The 3 systems also work because the drug prices are negotiated to the minimal possible price. Take it or leave it. What America needs is to enhance the current hybrid system where there is private insurance and public option for those who cannot afford the private insurance. What I mean by public option is a VA like system accept with more efficiency. Anyone with a social security should be able to walkin to a clinic run by a government support with a social security card and say I don't have insurance, I am sick and need to be treated.
1
"I don’t care whether a politician has new ideas, and neither should you. What matters is whether a politician has good ideas."
But that's where the arguments begin, Paul, in regards as to whose ideas are considered good. Your readers know which ideas you consider good, and they always involve more government involvement, no matter what the issue.
Issues like health care, pollution, wages, welfare, and education should not primarily be political issues in the first place. In the first place, they should be human interest stories that the press and news media cover, showing shortcomings, suffering, and solutions. Then and only then, will the public be ready for politicians to propose solutions. What ever happened to advocacy? The press used to do this thing to move public sentiment. This is all their fault for ceding the playing field to partisan politics by largely abandoning advocacy. A spineless (or perhaps bullied) press has led us into these doldrums.
I think we need some new ideas on taxes. Too Many people avoid taxes in too many. That needs to be fixed. The government need more revenue.
Politicians must make simple statements of what they want to do and why they want to do it. The why part is the more important, since you can accomplish it in different ways to get people to support the program.
1
I have a saying (I have many): There's a difference between advice and help. People give you advice, and they think they are "helping" you. In fact, most of the time, their advice is obvious and does nothing to help you solve the problem you are facing. Like, if you really want to help me, pick up a shovel! Do something! So it goes with "new ideas." Our magic bullet culture thinks we just need to either 1) end the conspiracy (whatever conspiracy there might be) or 2) devise a perfect system that can't be gamed and/or has no inefficiencies. Both are pretty much be definition impossible. Then we decide we're frustrated. It's like the fortune teller who says you are "intuitive." It sounds like a unique insight, but it's really just another way to say you have feelings.
Political will and courage are perhaps the "new" ideas
everyone is looking for.
That, and perhaps the realization that nothing gets done without money. And the GOP is determined to deprive the government of it.
2
Thank you, Mr. Krugman. And to add to your conclusion: It also matters whether a politician can tell the truth (from a lie). In the age of post-truth Trump, that one is going to become a deal breaker for some of us.
2
I'm afraid we are, for some issues, truly are in need of some new ideas.
Immigration comes to mind, followed by a world-informed foreign policy and more equitable tax code.
1
In that case, what's your problem, concretely, with the bipartisan comprehensive immigration bill that the Senate wrote under Obama, and the GOP then torpedoed at the very last moment?
3
Very true, but Democrats also need to go big* and look beyond issues like health care and the environment (as important as they are). People are anxious about their basic economic security; Trump’s margin of victory in 2016 is explained by the fact that he spoke to this anxiety more forcefully than Clinton. There’s plenty of low-hanging fruit if the Dems would just reach up to pluck it: millions of Americans, for example, live in fear worrying that they won’t be able to afford a secure retirement; expanding Social Security in some fashion would help and would likely be very popular.
*“Medicare For All” would be big, but it wouldn’t be smart. Americans with good employer-sponsored health insurance arguably have the best health insurance in the world (partly courtesy of tax subsidies that are largely invisible to them), and health care is the number one private employer in many places, notably the Rust Belt. Dems would attempt to completely overturn the status quo at their peril. Better to go Swiss.
2
There is another "new" idea in environmental protection that needs to be considered. Currently, air quality management focuses on independent attainment of separate standards for each regulated pollutant. In 2004, the National Academy of Sciences recommended an integrated approach that would focus on reducing the exposure of the most vulnerable populations (e.g., children, the elderly, and even commuters on freeways) to multiple pollutants. This approach is technically feasible, but too many interests are invested in the way things have always been done.
3
One new idea for the Democrats would be balancing the budget through tax increases on the wealthy.
2
Except that Obama did exactly that ... do some fact-checking and you'll see.
Next?
We need a new economic paradigm to deal with automation and globalization and the fact that infinite growth is not possible with finite resources. Actaully, we could start by recognizing that this is a problem.
4
Politicians need to live with the people they serve rather than constantly surrounding themselves with people who can give them money.
3
The one good idea for Democrats is Economic Justice. We must achieve that before we can achieve anything else. We are fooling ourselves by thinking a simple solution like "Universal Healthcare," which can be helpful, is going to solve "The Problem." Thomas Jefferson had it right when he suggested that the wealth of the nation belongs to the nation, not only to certain designated heirs. We have the solution, but we are afraid of it.
5
Although I support health care for everyone, we spend 18% of our GDP on Health Care -- a big burden for the country. I have been told that service for all would be expensive because our population needs more health care/person than other countries who have health care for all. Is this true?
What changes are needed to reduce our health care cost per person of about $10,000? How much closer must we be to the European health care systems that spend about $5000/person?
1
Re. "I don’t care whether a politician has new ideas, and neither should you. What matters is whether a politician has good ideas:"
What matters is whether our media pundits will ever have the courage to demand repeal of Citizens United, the January, 2010, Supreme Court decision that enabled the unlimited anonymous bribes to political candidates that handed our government over to a few billionaires.
10
Paul's looking to what other countries do is un-American and off-limits. America doesn't look to nobody. We invent the wheel ourselves. If we can't think of it, it mustn't be thought of. It's a kind of soft "Iron Curtain" you might say.
1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSZYHKL_1yI
Coke? Pepsi?....Ford? Chevy?.....ATT? Verizon?......DNC?RNC?........and yes the DNC and the RNC are indeed actual corporations! Political Campaigns are in fact nothing more than Ad Campaigns complete with marketting strategies and consumer polls. The citizens of the USA have no real thinking ability at all........programed to be loyal consumers of DNC! Tastes Great! or RNC! Less Filling! but in reality both brands are "crappy beer".
3
When Republicans attack Democrats for not having new ideas they are saying that there is nothing to be done about income inequality, infrastructure or any of our basic needs. Republicans have no need to do anything as their only desire is to destroy government and give what ever is left over to their rich enablers. To republicans it is not about new ideas only denying that any worthwhile idea not be tried and should be denied out right. The needs of the people be damned.
4
There's a basic assumption in Mr Krugman's column that is open to debate, namely that politicians are primarily interested in solving the nation's problems. I would suggest that politicians are primarily interested in getting elected because, as with robbing banks, that's where the money is. This also explains why and how the Republicans, bereft of ideas, ethics, and compassion, along with a casual relationship with the truth, have managed to capture the entire US government.
Republicans do whatever it takes to get elected, and in this environment of a poorly informed citizenry easily distracted by shiny objects, policy pronouncements and "new ideas" --- the campaign method of choice of Dems everywhere --- are no match for fear mongering, racist innuendo, and promises of clean coal and manufacturing jobs. When this approach gets you elected and re-elected, why would you bother with new policy ideas that do little more than cause the voter's eyes to glaze over.
Once in office, there is zero incentive to implement new ideas, much less come up with them, because incumbents are almost impossible to dislodge, especially if the day after inauguration they re-start their next election campaign. Who has time for fixing problems when there's money to raise and voters to scare the hell out of?
Besides, most voters don't want new ideas. What they want is a return to the good ol' days. Politicians need only promise a free ride in the time machine to get them there.
2
Democrats can't win with "higher taxes, bigger welfare state, more bureaucratic regulations and Medicare for all" because they tried it before and they lost at the ballot box every time. So they need to re-package the same box of manure and try to sell it as a new idea.
1
There are 2 clashing ideas today. There is progressive democracy where government serves the people and give them the opportunity to prosper and provide irrevocable human rights and protections which was the essence of the New Deal, which protected the ordinary citizen and gave us Social Security and what followed in succeeding Democratic administrations.
Ascendant today is the politics of selfishness which goes under many names: neo-liberalism, conservatism, fascism, etc., and uses many party names including Republican. In the USA it follows the usual pattern which is ownership of the government by a certain group or class of people; in our case wealthy white men, who control the masses by fear of “the other,” Jews, black and brown people, Muslams, immigrants, etc., using lies, propaganda, misinformation and where necessary thugs and goons or lawyers. .
These fascists have some excellent ideas but those ideas only benefit themselves alone. Government is to enrich themselves and rob the public. Fascists are corrupt. The end result is always a police state where elections are often replaced by killing or imprisoning opponents.
Hitler was the darling of the cheering masses in 1933. His ideas were not new, yet the dupes bought it like the misinformed folks who believe themselves to be patriots, cheering Trump's threats and slanders in a Michigan fund raiser to the cheers of people who could not tell truth from lies and can’t tell the difference and don’t care.
4
One old idea the leaders of the Republican Party might rediscover: decency.
Mike Pence recently praised Joe Arpaio as a"champion of the rule of law".
"Sheriff Joe" as Donald Trump affectionately calls him, kept detainees in camps in Arizona which were not far removed from concentration camps (his own term). Some were exposed to dangerous levels of heat. Some died.
Another of Donald Trump's favorites is Ted Nugent, who when Barack Obama was President called him a "sub-human mongrel" and suggested that the President "suck on my machine gun". These comments earned Mr. Nugent a conversation with the Secret Service, and after Trump's election, dinner in the Oval Office.
Pence, Arpaio, Nugent, Trump: four indecent men by any standard. I hope that Republicans not already signed onto Trump's cult will think carefully in November.
12
So true... Democrats haven't idea!
Who said economists dont have a sense of humor....."ryan is gingrich with a lower body fat"
Krugman likes his old ideas, hence the title of this piece.
1
Why would Republican 'ideas' sell better than Democrats'?
Well, money. Money makes this land go round.
If Republicans are for lower taxes, less government and more economic 'freedom', then they will certainly win in the media. Anyone with a brain knows the rich are in control, not the poor, not the lower-income, not the workers. The rich are king.
So, the vast number of politically ignorant and lazy Americans vote for who they're told to. They vote for the best, or worst, 'message'. It's the crime of America.
Never expect the ideas of community and compassion, the ideas of equality and a 'more perfect Union' to shine. We are the sell-outs. We are the 'Christians' that follow the banks and moneychangers. We're the worst.
Nah, the game of 'selling' candidates and parties is rigged. The country is falling, decaying, sinning. Our hope is in the honor and truth that we all naturally carry in us.
Nothing's guaranteed here. We can decide to be good and noble and loving; or we can elect the greediest, sleaziest, sexually assaulting, traitor, vainglorious Trump and his kind of criminal pirate. Our choice.
1
The GOP's "new idea" is that fellow Americans they "don't like" get demonized and somehow vanish--at little or no cost. Remember Mitt Romney getting caught at it in 2012 by a cater-waiter recording it? Saying 47% of Americans (150 million) are "takers" an should vanish?
This is more than Hitler (6 million, including my family members) and Stalin (50 million) accomplished at great cost.
That "new idea" should be sent where it belongs--down the toilet of history.
Unfortunately, in our day and age we equate fame and ill-fame equally, so this idea's proponents don't get what they really deserve.
1
I plan to vote for the Death and Taxes candidate..........hopefully we'll hear more from those dangerous people......The Federal Education Standards are a dismal failure....abolish the Dept of Education it does nothing and is a waste of money...allow the locals to decentralize schools and put them back into local communities where they belong.......Campaign Reform? Easy.....Tax Political Contributions....NO you dont get to keep excess funds when you "retire" from Congres.....Tax ALL Lobbyist ORganizations ...heavily. No more Offshore Banking....sorry kids....cant play pirate with USA anymore.......and Support NAFTA!! which is the most fore-sighted thing Reagan ever accomplished and that those small minded Bush's and Clinton's and Obama's tried to destroy..
Here's a new idea: don't shamelessly sandbag anyone who's not a corporate shill. Try it out. You'll be a happier person.
Even monkeys can do what they see other monkeys doing. Why can't the US?
Finally someone states the obvious. After 50 years of pummeling over the "paucity of ideas" Krugman wakes up to the thought that there is not and never will be a "new idea" They're all totally stale and have all been rehashed over and over again. What we don't get, because of this smokescreen, is the implementation of progressive social Democracy. These "ideas" did not, by any measure, fail us as a country during the "New Deal". We know what happens when money, propaganda and politics join forces. Why do we tolerate it? With this unholy triumvirate Germany got Hitler, we got Trump. It is an old playbook used by dictators all over the world. (a successful stale idea) Revisiting Glass Steagle, reinstating the FCC rules that require factual news reporting, medicare for all, the equal rights amendment, a living wage, all stale old ideas that would uplift all Americans and what we get from the establishment is "trickle down" and Social Security is a Ponzi scheme. We have endured Republican and Republican lite Neoliberal lies and propaganda long enough. We know the answers to our problems, the rich among us don't want to ever consider them and have lied about this for decades.
3
Careful, Paul. The WHCA is going to come after you for making fun of Newt Gingrich's looks!
Some additional considerations. “Ideas, “ new or old, innovative or zombie-type, represent someone’s answers; viable or not. In order to move on, and to limit and/or prevent preventable failures we need to create and consider legitimate questions, a la the cosmologist.von Foerster. About issues and things that we neither know nor understand; their relevant levels, qualities and other dimensions.Not how much is 1+1?... which while while well known may not be adequately understood. In terms of its implications. Consider:when people are transmuted into numbers, such as body counts, what does 500,000 dead in Syria mean? Or a drowned migrant child, THERE? Questions whose inherent quest stimulates us to explore,m; to trek into uncertainties. To risk unpredictabilities. To “Fail better.” Wrestle with randomness and outliers; Black Swans a la Taleb.To chance beginning, while acknowledging that total control is a myth! What can, will enable each of us to go beyond knowing-learning, to understanding and making a contribution to both create a needed sustainable difference, and if the conditions exist-are “exist able” to BE come that very difference!
I disagree to a certain extent. We do need new ideas and boy, oh, boy, are they out there. Somehow there is a massive disconnect between all the projects and research and ideas that are out there that NEVER get considered by Congress or others in authority or with money to sponsor.
Paul's comments on healthcare are true, we do know what works in so many other areas too and we also have plenty of examples of what doesn't work (look at Kansas and La. and their financial near ruin due to Rep policies) but these ideas never get to Congress.
Our biggest problems:
1) the party in power decides who can testify or provide information. sadly that means that people with great information to share aren't even heard from
2) with all the great ideas out there, how come we never get them enacted. Because they aren't interested in making things work better. only interested in proposing the law that their lobbyist promote.
3) given that only lobbyist and business leaders are the ones that come up with ideas that do get to Congress or any other local government. that is our only choice. & then Congress debates that 1 choice. Why can't we have 3-5 ideas from consev, mod & libs at the same time. Because they aren't interested in getting it right for our country.
4) things from science to econ to urban planning & rural farming & community ideas, I am continually amazed with all the extraordinary things going on to make things better, create jobs and business. but never are considered.
2
Why the media fascination with shiny new ideas? Because they know as long as that captures our attention little else will get accomplished.
The entire world, USA included, lives in an Orwellian Creation and we all refuse to admit it. As for USA, we have taught ourselves to worship the State............just as much as any russian was taught to worship their own Soviet State .... Trust the Govt. We are instructed to believe all good, all safety, all prosperity flows from the Central Govt.....without govt we'd all die!! The USA was founded with the basic concept that its citizens would be allowed to anything that wasnt specificly out-lawed.....but these days we all behave as if we are NOT allowed to do anything that the Central Govt has specifically allowed. And that is exactly the BIG BROTHER mentallity that George Orwell and others were writing about.
It's not that most politicians are unaware of "good ideas" to solve the nation's problems.
It's that politicians are fully aware of what the lobbyists who pay them think of those ideas.
4
I believe voters want new blood more than new ideas. Trump was even new blood, someone people thought would drain the swamp, scramble Washington. Democrats in my lifetime have elected Kennedy, Carter, Clinton and Obama. Johnson got in on the momentum of Kennedy's tragic death. I like Joe Biden, but it would behoove the dems to find a young man or woman to lead the charge for good, old, progressive ideas. And the ticket cannot be all White.
1
EXACTLY! thank you
A little over 2,000 years ago, a man had some great ideas. Love your neighbor. See everyone as your neighbor. Take care of the poor and the sick. Look to your own faults before pointing out the faults of others. Be a peacemaker.
These are old ideas but they are still very good ideas. The fact that they have never really been implemented worldwide or even nationwide says more about our shortcomings than about the ideas themselves.
The man? We did what we usually do to people who tell us to treat each other with love and compassion. We killed him.
Does Krugman want another Democrat retread to run in 2020. Why not, they have ensured that no new face gains prominence since Kerry had Obama keynote the 2004 convention.
The structure of the US economy is increasingly marked by reduced competition: monopoly, oligopoly and cartels. Large financial institutions and multinational corporations determine economic policies, as the role of national government is constrained by fears of private sector reactions to anything resembling a policy initiative that aims at providing benefits for the great majority of the American people. T-Rump may have lied, but his lies had resonance.
Politicians are not expected to have "new ideas;" Their advisors are the ones to produce them. Have the Democrats had any "new ideas" since the New Deal? Everything mentioned in Krugman's column is merely an expansion of the policies implemented by FDR on the advice of his advisors. The Republicans also sing the same tune they had sung since Harding and Coolidge.
Where is the sort of legislative agenda for reforming the structure of the economy that was clear during the "Progressive Era" of Teddy Roosevelt and Howard Taft? Do the Democrats, propose anything that their paymasters might oppose? Remember, Clinton went along with the deregulation of derivatives and associated actions on the recommendation of Rubin, Summers, et al, because of the alleged need to face competition from foreign banks. Greatest good for the greatest number? Really?
1
Paul, rarely disagree with you so much on a specific subject, but you're off here. You're approaching environmental protection with only the traditional two tools, regulations and taxes/tradable permits, assuming that's all there are. They're needed, of course, but both have limits. Plus the scope of the challenges we're recognizing are immense (e.g. huge reductions in carbon emissions, plastics all over the ocean, losing our coral reefs). We don't always admit it, but we (currently) don't know how to get there, along with dealing with interrelated issues like fairness and, of course, jobs. So we need new ideas, which people (especially students) need to know in order to generate them!
Take a look at the sustainability field. You will see more and more businesses practicing corporate social responsibility (yes, I know they have to mean it), in more and more ways, with some going to hard to imagine lengths (e.g. aiming for zero pollution, voluntarily subjecting themselves to internal carbon taxes, waking up to their dependence on ecosystems, sending their employees to river clean-ups). That may violate traditional microeconomics on how far a company should go towards social responsibility--but so what! Theory will have to catch up.
Look at the European transformation field, social entrepreneurship, impact bonds, sufficiency, B Corps. Some of these link to policy and potentially politicians.
It's not true "there's nothing new under the sun." Unless you don't look for it.
1
What we need is a return to a very old idea: that our politicians are elected to serve us. But the Citizens United decision put paid to that idea. If kowtowing to the largest campaign donors wasn't obvious before Citizens United it is now. What we have is a version of taxation without representation in that our elected officials do not bother to listen to or care about us until 2 weeks prior to the elections. That interest vanishes once they're back in office.
Once they are back in office it's too hard to work for us. We don't donate to them. We don't flatter them. We ask them to work for their salaries which are, much as they don't want to admit it, coming from the government some of them despise. Despising the government means they despise us as well. Why? Because WE are the government and the governed.
Therefore the idea that needs to be revived and respected is that our elected and appointed officials are going to work for us and that means seeing to our needs first, not the needs of those who don't need tax cuts, have enough money to buy an entire hospital, and have never ever in their lives had to choose between food and medicine, paying the rent or for insurance premium, etc. However, given how vicious politics has become coupled with the complete lack of communication and cooperation, I wouldn't hold my breath on any good ideas taking hold soon.
2
Repubs know what pays. Didn’t Paul Ryan receive $500,000 donation from Koch Brothers after the Tax Cut bill was passed?
In this advanced economy, an increase in minimum wage will not produce unemployment, as every worker, like in any fast food knows: they have been reduced to the absolute minimum, and a few dollars per hour added to their salaries will not produce firings, as the joints will not be able to function appropriately.
And yes, the increase will improve the welfare of the workers and their families, and increase demand por certain products and services.
1
I wish Republicans would read the Economist, if they can still read. This week's edition of the conservative British magazine, which also covers the United States better than most U.S. publications, has an entire series of articles on universal health care, calling it "an affordable necessity." Affordable, that is, everywhere except here. It points out that we are the only large, rich country in the world without universal health care. Worse yet, our hospital and drug costs are 60% higher than in Europe. It also points out the fallacy of Republican Party's position that health care is not a right but something that people choose to buy, or not to buy, in a marketplace. "Voluntary insurance cannot ensure that everbody gets coverage," says the Economist, since not all can afford it. Therefore, a single-payer government-run system is the only solution.
6
The old, altruistic ways are the ones I support. I want our government to make every resident has what they need to get along. The rich should shoulder their immense responsibility, gladly...or by force, if necessary. Change back to progressive taxation, and fully fund the IRS. We can easily pay for everything our nation needs. IF the rich don't take everything produced, here. Enough is enough. Up with workers' rights; up with quality education for all; up with universal health care; up with social safety networks!
3
ChesBay--DOWN with the military-industrial complex, and unnecessary war!
Add Affordable Housing to the list of problems that don't need new ideas. The problem isn't a lack of solutions but a lack of political will, and that is largely due to the people who benefit from not providing solutions - usually the wealthy property owners - control the politics.
We do already have plenty of good ideas. We just don't have the courage to take the heat to implement them. That's what voters really want.
1
Paul Krugman is correct. We do not need new policies. What we have needed for the past 30 yers is new and reordered PRIORITIES.
President Carter spoke of zero based budgeting. Intelligent people will have no trouble finding what our Country and people really need and want and over time, just do it.
2
Completely agree this time with Paul. I hate when pundits insist that new ideas (ie programs, spending, taxes, etc) are required from politicians. If elected officials would simply govern well and make sound decisions, we wouldn't need these "new, big ideas" to come from government.
1
I attended a seminar by Linus Pauling in the 70s (BTW, he's a 2 times Noble Prize recipient). After his seminar, Prof. Pauling was asked how he got such good ideas. He remarked that he had lots of ideas biut only a few were good ideas.
1
In many of Krugman's pieces he's just filling column inches for his contract. But there are ones like this where he's spot on. It shouldn't be a matter of showing voters, or pundits, shinny new ideas but rather of forcing them to acknowledge their basic values through their choices/tradeoffs among the old ones already out there. Sadly, having to make value tradeoffs isn't popular with voters or pundits. They prefer the quest for "new" with its illusion of benefits without costs, especially not opportunity costs.
3
Some other new-old ideas:
1. A minimum wage nationwide that keeps up with inflation.
2. Massive public/government investment in infrastructure, with the tax-contributing jobs that will throw off. Or more broadly, a new WPA. This was also discussed in the commentary to Thomas Edsall's column today as a hedge against technological underemployment.
3. Truly progressive, 1950's style taxation, for both individuals and corporations. And reverting to a simpler code with far fewer special carve outs.
5
Education seems to be one of the prime manufacturers of new ideas. Ever since I can remember there have been stories about how some school district, or school, or particular teacher came up with a successful revolutionary way to teach math, science, reading, race relations, dodge ball, etc etc etc. The theme of the story is typically, if X can do this why can't everyone.
The Republicans and conservatives are particularly good at coming up with new ideas to concentrate wealth, but wrap them in "aw shucks", "common sense", "hard working American", baloney and dog whistles. They are very good at convincing voters that less is really more, or less for "them" and more for you.
Trump simplifies the whole new ideas thing with the modest pronoun "ME".
2
I do not agree that the New Deal was trashed by so-called neo-liberal Democrats in the 90’s. The GOP antidote to what they consider the New Deal poison was the promotion and 1980 election of Ronald Reagan, the anti-FDR. The GOP have played on every divisive issue they could find to solidify the anti-government stranglehold they got on the country with Reagan. The Democrats have had to walk softly ever since. We Democrats have been fighting GOP promoted racism, xenophobia, the prosperity gospel, guns, and the not-on-my-dime mentality ever since. W/Cheney and Trump are the more recent and increasingly blatant incarnations of Ronald Reagan.
4
And this sort of excuse making is precisely why the Democrats continue to respond to their corporate funders rather than their traditional voters. They claim they "have" to do that because how else will they fight "racism, xenophobia, the prosperity gospel, guns, and the not-on-my-dime mentality" as if fighting for those things and economic justice are incompatible.
We *do* need new ideas. Paul complains about the fact that even the good ideas keep failing in our present system. But there's a big reason why good ideas keep failing -- because our political and economic systems are based above all on competition, precluding the cooperation that we need to actually solve problems. The new ideas we need are about how to redesign society to be more cooperative. See whycantwe.org where I present mine.
Professor Krugman...Have you ever written a column or book or given a speech anywhere that changed any part of pubic discussion about politics or economics? What have you done to make change happen?
In other words Professor have YOU ever had a good idea?
Frankly Professor Krugman I don't believe that you have. I've never seen or heard anyone mention your name in reference to any good idea that had a profound influence on American politics and policy. Nothing has changed because of anything you have ever written.
I have a good idea. Please Professor, please offer some good ideas and then follow up to see change happen. Until you have a real impact on people's lives do not offer any more suggestions to either party or their constituents.
There is a backlog of writing. Surely you can offer something besides words to improve the lives of most Americans. If not, well, then, you have failed miserably.
Generate something new Mr. Krugman. Something useful. And let's see you act on it too. Inspire us!
1
Ummm, Jay, you do know that this guy won a Nobel Prize in economics, don't you? On the other hand, since Republicans nominated Trump for a prize with a "Nobel" in the title, I guess any such recognition of excellence is now worthless anyway.
1. As the comments below show, Krugman is inspiring many of us already, and firing us op to vote ... :-)
2. More importantly, if you disagree with the good idea that Krugman is explaining in this op-ed, maybe you could try to explain to us WHY, what your own alternative idea would be, and why it would be better ... to start with?
Looking forward to reading you (no irony).
1
It’s true the ideas are out there; what’s really needed is shiny new packaging to sell them. Bill Clinton was “new” packaging in 1992, and Obama certainly was in 2008 (and possibly today as well). It’s all about the messenger; Paul Ryan was successful because he looks good, and can talk, even if what comes out of his mouth was garbage.
2
I encourage Dr. Krugman to devote more column space to the subject of why, as he says briefly here, so many pundits, especially Washington pundits, especially so-called liberal Washington pundits, compulsively turn on their own at election time. The most notable case was that of Al Gore, a social fixture on the Georgetown pundit circuit, who was roundly demeaned as a weenie and a stiff, etc., etc. by those very Georgetown "insiders." John Kerry got the same treatment from his putative buddies, and so, of course, did Madam Clinton, who couldn't get a break from the chatterers who were presumably in political alignment with her. Why do liberals, Democrats, progressives like to diminish their own kind? Whence the self-loathing? Please continue, Dr. Krugman.
4
I would like to suggest it is less about good ideas than about good values, character and the like. The emphasis ought to be on the essential predecessors to “good ideas!”
What most profoundly rubs me the wrong way about our President and his crony cabinet is their absence of a collective internal compass! Power and it’s retention, not protecting the American public’s health and welfare is the catalyst that motivates and ignites their interest.
Get better people in office, ones who care less about feathering their own nest, and more about the oaths of office they all took, and we will have better, i.e., more honorable leadership!
I am reminded that they said Gingrich had a hundred
ideas every day and all of them were horrible.
The Dems have "no ideas" is a convenient dodge
by the lapdog Media to ignore the constant lying
by the GOP which is their official policy
Supply Side ha always been a crock and we have
30 years of data to show it does not work. However
the same lies get repeated every day by reporters
who should know better but choose to play along.
Nothing new here. The Media professes to be
confused about the Russia probe. We know why
Trump fired Comey. he told Holt and Russians
why.
We know what works. The question does our
government decide to do that or continue
rewarding lying and failure
2
A truly excellent article
The problem is the classic “not invented here” stupidity. Total hubris. We see this every day9n the private sector too
Politicians act like teenagers. They have to make their own mistakes, be there own heroes. Look at Trump as a prime example. Takes a special degree of arrogance to be a politician.
1
"...a political party isn’t like Apple, which needs to keep coming up with glitzier products...
What about keeping the old products working, like inner-city:
> K-12 education
> Bus and rail transit
> Roads and bridges
> Housing
Glitziest thing in NYC in the past several years was Uber - and it cost about a billionth of what several miles of new subway did, built around the same time...
But - not to be outdone - our public servants toil tirelessly to devise glitzy taxes and rules, lest Uber and its ilk become too helpful...
Talk about keeping productivity on the historical socialist growth curve...
You know, a hockey-stick curve - but going down, not up...
Here is a new idea:
Eliminate the $134 per month fee for Medicare part B.
2
The Democrats slogan should be "Trickle up, not trickle down."
Wwe have gotten so used to cheap jack hustlers: Pay Day loans, Dr. Oz, Oprah, Today, Judge Hatchett, Any 24 hour medium with soap to sell that we finally elected one to the highest office. We are all Rosanne and Dan whether we like it or not. The problem is that America is full of dumb toddlers looking for breast milk. I include all of us. I don't care how you identify. If you call yourself a liberal or a conservative, you have been played by the forces that will nickel and dime your head and then sell it to Cambridge Analytica. Until we get past being the quivering meat wheels of conception, we are doomed.
1
All very good arguments, and well supported. Too bad nobody will listen.
Paul, perhaps you should take your case directly to the hometown 'Sneer-oes' of the Democratic party: MSNBC.
1
I'm not looking for new ideas, just some new faces who just might a) have a spine, b) can act upon their convictions, c) speak truth to Republican lies.
1
The ACA was a genuine advance, but judging by Chucky Wall Street's stirring call to arms . . . (now what the heck did he call that plan again?) . . . the Democrats DO need more than what they're offering so far.
Of course one Democratic contender DID offer free tuition and real universal health care last time around . . . but all he received from Dr K was . . . sneers.
2
How about properly fund education? How about stop talking about "school choice" as they best way to educate our children, and instead make all our schools good, and then I will choose to send my children to the one that is closest to my house?
95
That depends on whether you want to be a good American that shops or pays taxes.
Right now the Corporate State wants you shopping and creating more Investor class wealth.
4
Hey I got a idea how about simple honesty and class in the White House for a start.
1
"Paul Ryan 2010 was basically Newt Gingrich 1995 with a lower BMI."
This is the funniest line I've read in the NYTimes in weeks!
Hey PK you got this idea from my comment in another thread didn't you? Anyway the teachers in the RED states are already coming up with the ideas. That we already had, right?
Because America is a large, complex, heterogeneous republic without precedent and parallel—“exceptional.”
Hey, I have a big, new idea: end sealing and falsifying adopted persons' birth certificates, for all adoptions going forward.
Kinda funny how building a middle class and workers' rights are now old fashioned policies.
Liberals - the new conservatives!
3
Among old new ideas is Lovins's "feebate" for pollution control. Instead of setting a minimum efficiency standard, devise a sliding tax: Cars that get less than average mileage pay an increasingly high tax, and cars that get better than average receive an increasing high subsidy. Each year, the average is re-measured, and the tax/subsidy adjusted accordingly.
Lovins first proposed his feebate in 1990. It's as sensible now as then. It uses market forces to drive innovation. It tends to be progressive, because wealthier people tend to drive bigger, less efficient cars. The tax is avoidable by simply buying a car that's at least of average efficiency. It's self-regulating and self-indexing; cars would naturally become more efficient over time, in pursuit of the almighty dollar.
Yet Democrats continue to lean on CAFE standards, as though only mandates work.
I generally agree with Prof. Krugman but this column is hopelessly naive. People don’t vote on the basis of ideas but on the basis of values. Economy is only one of the components of political decision-making and is not always the most important one. What is the economic utility of owing an assault rifle or being against abortion? Values motivate voters to oppose even seemingly benign ideas, such as universal health care or universal income. If the issue is framed as freedom versus equality, Democrats have to understand that a significant proportion of the electorate will choose freedom. And indeed, before trying to solve the problem of inequality, you have to prove that it IS a problem. Every society has an underclass; why shouldn’t the US? Compassion for the poor? I, personally, have no compassion for the ignorant, the lazy and the stupid. What will you do with millions like me? Send us to re-education camps? No, in order to win the middle, Democrats have to learn to speak to the young, the aspiring, the striving and the successful. They have to embrace the discourse of freedom and self-reliance that the GOP now owns. They don’t need new ideas on the practical level perhaps, but they definitely need new values.
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One thing I would like to point out. People how are pro-gun and anti-abortion have a mixed up idea of freedom. Freedom for them to own as many lethal weapons as they want and the denial of freedom for woman to make their own personal choice.
19
You lost me when you said you have "no compassion for the ignorant, the lazy and the stupid". I guess the assumption is that that's what makes poor people poor. It makes me think that your education has been inadequate, if you can view social and economic inequality in such simplistic, black and white terms. Maybe America's problems really do boil down to an educational system that fails to teach history, civics and basic critical thinking.
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I agree that people, including me, vote primarily on the basis of values but the question is which values? Here are some of my values: There is more to a well-lived life than getting rich and consuming goods and services. Every human being deserves the material basics to stay alive. Work confers dignity, self-confidence, and hope and work should be available for all. Caring for children is the most important work in any society, under any economic or political system. There is no such thing as a "self-made man." We fall down and we all need help getting up. Now, which party represents my values better than the other?
22
Whether we Americans accept it or not, we have allowed the GOP to stack the deck to the point of it being impossible to right our ship of state.
The biggest targets that business wanted was achieved with:
#1 Citizens United and
#2. getting John Roberts as Chief Justice
With those 2 items in hand, the buying of congress was a done deal. Once Congress was fully delivered and paid for, that other sacred cow of the people was deal with with racism to separate and divide; Organized Labor became the whipping boy for White Privilege status. The people of GOP states were brainwashed into hating organized labor; their only way to adequately oppose big business' unlimited funds. Now even educated teachers are too highly paid to be employable, inadequate imported stand-ins are brought in.
Unless there is change in Dem and union leadership, the fate is sealed. Teachers having to just band together locally to deal with nationwide teacher underpayment is absurd! NEA, teachers & Dem leadership are to blame.
2
The democrats consist of two groups, the one group such as Paul Krugman who tear apart ideas like free education and jobs guarantee as unworkable, and the rest who put lipstick on republican pig ideas and call it their own.
Maybe it is time for the intelligentsia to work with what is called the 'extreme' left to make better policies.
2
In reality, potential Democrat voters consist of two groups:
1. those who believe in free education and jobs, and who then accept to go standing in the mud and fight hard to get us one step closer to those ideals/finish line, and
2. those who believe in the same ideals but prefer to stand and the sidelines and yell "not enough!" each time elected Democrats managed to achieve yet another step forward ... imagining that in a democracy it is possible to install radical, lasting change overnight.
The second group is, according to Saul Alinsky, suffering from "political illiteracy", and the most vulnerable to false GOP attacks on Democrats designed to increase cynicism and keep voters at home rather than fired up and engaged.
1
Hate to disappoint NYT True Believers, but many old progressive ideas may be "feel good" approaches for the liberal base, but are really just plain-old bad policy. Big-government programs and bureaucracies generally result in ineffective, and oftentimes counterproductive, outcomes, and government-run or single-payor healthcare is no different.
We actually suffer from insufficient market mechanisms in healthcare, so let's allow the market do it's work. It may not offer the equal-outcomes-for-all fix that appeals to the typical NYT social justice warrior, but when compared to top-down government-directed programs, the market almost always delivers superior results that consistently provides the most good to the most people.
Think about it. Would you want your healthcare provisioned to you by the same people who bring you the IRS, the Department of Commerce, or your state motor vehicle department?
We already have more government than is good for us, and certainly more than we can afford. Bad policy will always be bad policy, whether new or old. Raise your game via the market, don't lower your standards with equal-mediocrity-for-all...
1
The pundits need to cover the destabilization of fact-based knowledge caused by Fox News, Breitbart, Rush Limbaugh, etc. They're always coming up with new ways to hoodwink people so why do the pundits ignore this?
May be the pundits are on the take too!
So T R U E. And 100% relevant to these time$. Thank you Dr Krugman for reminding US.
Attacking Democrats for "no new ideas" is more of the media's "false equivalency" which helped deliver Trump (rather than HRC) to the White House.
Where sits (tweeting) the leader of our KAKISTOCRACY.
1
The world does not need great men. It needs competent administrators. Trump is the absolute zero of competent administration. It is not physically possible for a lower level of competence to exist.
2
There are old problems that have been on the rise for awhile and deserve a policy re-visit. Worth a read:
"America’s Monopolies Are Holding Back the Economy"
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/02/antimonopoly-big-bu...
"More and more companies have monopoly power over workers’ wages. That’s killing the economy."
https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2018/4/6/17204808/wages-employers-worke...
"The Real Villain Behind Our New Gilded Age"
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/01/opinion/monopoly-power-new-gilded-age...
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Prof. Krugman as a Nobel laureate academic should certainly know that there are few people in any occupation, vocation or engaging in any activity who have a real new idea. Academics tend to re-hash old ideas and present them anew.
So Prof. Krugman is certainly correct. Demanding that politicians come up with new ideas just make them come up with new, but non-viable (polite for "dumb") ideas.
Better good ones, whether old or new and better to be able to implement them.
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Democrats indeed have the better policies when it comes to the environment, health care, and taxes...and then they take those ideas, bury them in policy websites, and campaign on the issues of culture wars, where they always seem to lose!
Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer led a government shutdown last year, calling attention to their passionate dedication to: (a) fair taxation; (b) universal health care; (c) environmental protection; or (d) none of the above? You got it, none of the above! Instead, they highlighted Dem devotion to MORE immigrants, and MORE ILLEGAL immigrants!
As for Hillary, she was all about none of the above, too! Instead, she campaigned on IDENTITY POLITICS! She would shatter the glass ceiling. She was in favor of women, blacks, Latinos, LGBTs, anyone but straight white males!
If Dems this election season will stick to Dr. Krugman's talking points, they will have an easy run. Instead, they are more likely to go with the Pelosi/Schumer/Clinton approach, and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and lose to the Trump wing of the Republican party again.
1
Mr. Krugman sounds pretty conservative here....Oh, just kidding. It's an authentic argument.
Here's my slightly cynical take on why pundits like to sneer at (frequently, it seems) Democrats. First, sneering is easier than thinking. Second, sneering at Democrats makes it look as if a pundit is 'fair and balanced'. This, as Dr. Krugman has pointed out many times, can lead to disastrous consequences. And third, sneering is click bait; it gets attention, which too many pundits crave. Of the three, perhaps the last is the biggest reason, as clicks lead to attention, which leads to clicks and on and on. After all, in this post-truth world, isn't it better to be noticed?
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"He/she ..., they’ll say, is tired, boring, annoying."
------------------------------------------------------------
Sorry, Paul, I must disagree. The media can handle boring, because their audiences tune it out. Trump understands this, but the Democrats still don't get it.
Candidates must now be constantly interesting to get elected and to stay involved. Obama was no drama and Hillary was "tired, boring and annoying."
Trump said he could get away with murder and still be elected. All he had to do was act strange. Trump won. Hillary lost.
1
Well, you're half onto something. The truth is most mainstream politicians, Democratic politicians included, are complicit with the media in peddling the hype. Mainstream pols like new ideas because most of them are basically careerists, and as careerists, they view politics as essentially a sales job. And what they're selling is themselves.
As the supposed party of change, the onus is more on the Democrats to come up with something and so you get these pols like Gavin Newsom or Kamala Harris in California, or Cory Booker and Kirsten Gillibrand back East continually attempting to repackage themselves as cutting edge. Or even this year's fraud, Cynthia Nixon.
Which is why none of them can be trusted. It takes a movement; accept no substitutes.
Ideas??
Really simple
Healthcare for everyone
No food insecurity for anyone
Guaranteed literacy programs for all
Infrastructure rehab.
This is not Make America Great Again but
Lets Make America Work for Everyone.
1
I think the only things that matter are the politicians values. If they want to maximize their wealth by maximizing the wealth of their funders in the short term, they don't care about education, infrastructure, the environment or health.
Some of them are smart, profoundly selfish liars, like a Ryan, and some are profoundly pompous ignoramuses, like Gingrich.
What they have in common is that they see the population as a group to be leveraged and squeezed.
They are like the cruelest kings, not capable of connecting or empathy. They are only aware of their basest needs without the levels of awareness and compassion present most vertebrates.
To these people, the only ideas that matter at all are the ones they can use to serve themselves.
We don't need new ideas, we need politicians that value creation, their neighbors on this planet, and who see the interconnected ness of all.
Mike
1
Many conservative pundits must prove daily that they can throttle-up animus and TRANSLATE The Mad Republican-of-the-Day bee dance.
Five wiggles and a left waggle. Over at Senate Committee, FIND Democrat attacking Scott Pruitt who the President really likes. GET aggressive, "they" want to keep "their" liberal big government.
Conservative pundits must also transition smoothly - from sneering disdain for a Latina mother who decides to get pregnant with an anchor baby - to seething retribution for activist judges "who don't follow the Constitution!"
Those bees just need some BLUE POLLEN: "Why didn't Reagan include onerous criminal penalties FOR EMPLOYERS when he signed the 1986 Amnesty?"
Or "Trump received permission for 70 work-visa foreigners at Mar-a-Lago because he doesn't want any of the 5000 Floridians in the state employment database (don't look European)."
Or "Trump recently pardoned a meat-packing plant owner serving a very long-sentence for financial crimes and who was caught with 389 undocumented workers as well."
The "joke" in America is the hypocrisy of our President WHO ROUSES HATRED while his company ignores unemployed American workers and while he does the opposite of punishing employers (his buds).
Spreading that blue pollen around - chokes out those noxious RED WEEDS.
I agree completely with Paul Krugman.
Let's consider heat pump technology since I write from an island on the Swedish west coast in a home with the primary heating system a silent heat pump.
NY Times - 1955 and 1960 (articles found by google, not NYT search). 1955 Heat pumps are the wave of the future in New England. 1960 https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1960/05/08/90662685.pdf (System installed in Milwaukee to set Northern record)
Now you, reader, search "heat pump" here at the Times. Laughable results. Try it.
Now to Vermont via VPR.net newsletter. Up there endless battles about extending the natural gas pipeline system, fossil fuels forever. But with interesting exceptions. The state and at least two colleges, Champlain and St. Michaels have made major commitments to Ground Source Geothermal (GSG), the best of all systems. And Bernie Sanders in 2013 held a major conference on GSG in Burlington.
Conclusion: The Times fails completely to inform its readers about a very old idea, alive and particularly well in Sweden, a country whose cities are heated by another "old idea" incineration of solid waste. Also not a topic you will find in the Times. There the key words are solar and wind, forever.
There is one old idea the Times and its readers do love, USCB assignment of each of us to a "race".
Have a nice fossil-fuel day my fellow Americans.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Dual citizen US SE
2
When I hear the Democratic leadership, when asked what are their plans, say "We need to lead with our values", I just want to scream. How about leading with your IDEAS, and not the normal driveling platitudes of good jobs, and a shot at the American dream.
Really? Steady as she goes? Then why are we Democrats becoming a coastal party?
Politicians talk to the public with short, established, rhetorical bursts. Just take a look at a (incomplete) list of political slogans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_slogans . Then read through several of the "Times Picks" on these boards. How often have we heard the same comments/criticisms?
It is not easy to come up with new ideas that make much sense--Mr. Krugman knows this. Other NY Times columnists, within the past month, have called for "big new ideas." This is not about the latest app.
How often do we need to be told that we need to decrease the levels of economic inequality, to deal with embedded racism and gender bias, to provide access to decent healthcare for our citizenry, to repair infrastructure, to work towards a cleaner environment?
Democrats are criticized for spending too much (really?), being socialist or Marxist (never mind actual definitions), and worse. This is far less accurate than the critique of the Republican's mantras of minimizing social safety nets and giving more and more to the upper 20% (not just the 1%).
Without an external and near existential crisis, how on earth are we going to work together? Especially with our long and escalating fondness for fake/junk news, in all its forms: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/miles-to-go-podcast-takes-a-behind-... .
1
Yes, it is depressing to read or see on TV a pundit who spends more time getting his hair blow dried or her make-up just right than he or she does actually reading policy briefs.
That is the work for the interns in the back room to read and digest for delivery by the celebrity wannabes in front of the camera.
And don't get me started on the supposed tough questioners in the Cable News media. Have praisers of Jake Tapper or Anderson Cooper ever watched a BBC pundit go after someone?
The professor is right. We know what makes for an economy that works for all of us, a robust, progressive taxation system, a strong labor movement and regulatory state. These are the very things the right wing have been attacking for the last thirty years.
Honest elections free of "Dark Money" are a necessity.
What America needs is the get rid of the fake (the Professors "Zombie" ideas) right wing agenda, and the supporting propaganda organs and apparatchiks.
Failing that, 90% of our children will be disposable, industrial serfs. There already is some portion (5-15%)? of our population living in what would have been considered bad science fiction dystopian conditions in 1970.
2
This column is outrageous. "But a political party isn’t like Apple, which needs to keep coming up with glitzier products to stay ahead of Android."
STAY ahead? That assumes Apple is already there.
Good day, sir. I SAID GOOD DAY!
"American Exceptionalism", (and American chauvinism) allows many politicians and many people to look at experiences in other countries and dismiss them as inapplicable. Portugal legalized all drugs and has had good outcomes but Jeff Sessions doesn't care. As Dr. Krugman points out, healthcare solutions abound around the world but none are deemed fit for America.
America is burdened by the corrupting effect of Citizens United; by the obscene amount of money spent on military equipment; and by American chauvinism and racism. Together they combine to make a great nation less than great.
2
Since FDR, Republicans have focused on rolling back progressive measures, even if Nixon and Eisenhower didn't actually do so. From 1980, the Republican agenda has been to lower taxes for the rich, appeal to racists, and blame "liberals" and "progressives" for everything wrong with America. Trump has added a tone of menace and bullying, and a lot more blatant self-dealing and corruption. Media which claim to be impartial or even-handed essentially whitewash Republican lying as the party of Greedy Old Plunderers.
2
Good that you know seem to think universal healthcare is a not only valid but also implementable idea NOW. Previously for some mysterious reason (maybe because it was Bernie’s while you were supporting the right of center Hillary with all your heart) you thought the political climate was not ripe. Anyways, independent of which of the three (or combinations) we pick we need to voice strongly that our best brains (you bring one) are fully behind it intellectually. I hope you will find your voice of the times i remember you lecturing at MIT as a young star: forceful, intelligent and bordering on passionate for solid left of center economics.
1
Of course politicians don't need new ideas. No one votes for ideas. Politics in America is nothing but a marketing exercise, and every marketer knows that you don't appeal to people's intellects, you appeal to their emotions.
The only idea the Republicans need is the only one they have: government is bad—if you're a productive white citizen (i.e., a "maker") government is taking your money away from you so it can give it to lazy brown people (i.e., the takers). That's it: The one and only Republican idea since Ronald Reagan.
The reason people say the Democrats have no ideas is because they haven't come up with a core message that is as effective at winning over America's largest demographic—white voters—as Reagan's core message of "government isn't the solution it's the problem."
Krugman is right that the country doesn't need any new ideas. What it needs is competent government. But to get competent government, someone is going to have to find a way to shatter the seemingly ineradicable Republican myth that government, by the very fact that it is government, can only be incompetent.
1
Why aren’t we hearing any Democratic pushback to the Republican desecration of the environment? Or the roll back of rules governing pure food and drugs?
The ruling allowing chlorpyrifos to be sprayed on fruit is especially awful since we know it causes brain damage in children. I’m a Democrat but it irritates the heck out of me that all the horrors of this administration basically go underreported in the news and unaddressed by the Democrats. That’s why so many want new leadership. If you won’t fight back against this administration, how will we know you’ll stand with unions, or back a liveable wage?
Let's face it: politics, once you get past the fluff and the abstract truisms, is complex, difficult, and therefore boring to 99% of people. People (and the media) want something to excite them, something they think is new. And we do have a ridiculous obsession with everything new in America.
1
Refreshingly clear-haded commentary, as is so often the case with Mr. Krugman. It is especially refreshing viewed against the backdrop of so much noise and chatter. I recently got a new Asian dentist (30 years old) who espoused some clear and good commonsense ideas for my treatments. I find his competence and honesty refreshing in contrast with the profit-oriented proposals of older periodontists who advocate hugely expensive (and profitable) implants. (Dentistry, by the way, is a hugely corrupt medical division -- no medicare help here! I'll bet Congressmen do just fine!) How about Represesntative Joseph Kennedy for 2020? Anyone heard his eloquent on-target espousals of unversal health care? Look it up on Youtube!
1
Wait, are you implying that Ryan will have an affair with someone who works for him while his wife is being treated for cancer, he divorces his wife, then his new wife goes on to be Ambassador to the Vatican? And that he will impeach Trump for lying about his affairs before he heads back to Wisconsin? "Running through the tape" as it were? And, that the only difference between the two is their BMI? Whew, for a minute there I thought you were implying they were cut from the same cloth.
Fair point, but a bit off. FDR-style policy is an old idea, but largely good, and proven as such. Sanders had an old platform, with old ideas worth revisiting, including a rekindling sense of the Great Society, another oldie but goodie. What is demonstrably newfangled (even newer than 'supply-side' or 'trickle-down' economics) is 'Third Way' triangulation politics, manifested by Clinton's platform, which the DNC is still struggling to sell to the public, despite 2016's election loss.
2
Politicians don't need new ideas -- they need a CLUE.
39
They don't need anything from us!
They serve for the Corporate/Investor oligarchy.
https://www.followthemoney.org/show-me?law-p=1&d-et=3#[{1|gro=d-eid
1
"good" ideas & a commitment to governance and the institutions we americans devised to carry it out.
Let's correct the mammoth process error we allowed to happen in 2016.
And THEN let's implement some of the good ideas we already have.
1
Ok. Some old ideas the Dems could articulate but have not and won't: Audit the Pentagon, enhance and guarantee Social Security, restore progressivity to the tax system, fossil fuel mitigation and yes, single payer health system. Also, it's not just the Dems. Trump was a fairly complete repudiation of the Republican guard as represented by Bush, Rubio, Romney, etc. The old idea Dems hide behind Russia baiting, Dreamers, and women's marches rather than challenge Trump from day one on those progressive issues he articulated in the campaign that Hillary, and even Bernie, would not touch.
1
The problem in America's politics is much deeper and well beyond good and bad ideas.
Millions of Americans --which elected Donald Trump president-- expect him to challenge the status quo ante.
From Trump's voting base perspective, he can exercise power at his own discretion, including lies as a political weapon.
As long as Trump continues delivering on his basic promises, including the wall along the Mexican border, his followers will continue to support him enthusiatically and will be energized to reelect him in 2020.
2
The Baby King is the most unpopular first term president in memory. If his supporters are too foolish to see that he only favors the wealthiest, or too racist to see that the wall won't be built and would solve nothing, they are free to continue to vote against their own interests. Yet, the Baby King will not run for a second term. Odds are that he will not finish his first term. Odds are that the Baby King goes to jail for his numerous crimes.
We need to take a critical look at what ideas work once the objectives of the ideas are identified. If the objective with SNAP is to allow poor people to have more to eat, SNAP is effective. If the objective is to give lots of money to campaign contributors, the last tax bill is probably effective. If the objective was to encourage more investment in the US, not so much.
Let's get big money out of politics----- until we do, people like the Koch Brothers will have an out-sized influence on which candidates we have to vote for and the ideas they put forward.
A system where the government matches small contributions (in some appropriate ratio, say 5:1) with no other contributions allowed, would help to get the influence of big money out of politics.
With big money out of politics, many things, like Medicare-For-All, carbon taxes, infrastructure renewal, etc. would be much more likely to get fair hearings in the public arena.
3
Universal access to health care and environmental protection are leading issues for the Democrats. The gulf between parties has never been greater. Democrats are the moderate, common sense party, while the GOP is radical and broken. The Democrats will protect the social safety net, while Repubs will dismantle it. The Democrats are pro-democracy, while the GOP favors voter suppression, unprecedented gerrymandering, unlimited dark money (Citizens United), and privatized prisons and schools. The GOP hates Unions and will never favor any infrastructure plan that relies on Union labor (overtime, safe working conditions, collective bargaining).
The GOP is radical and serves the oligarchs and the intolerant. The Democratic Party is pro-environment, education, health care, safety net and workers' rights. The choice is clear. The fate of the nation hangs in the balance.
4
"Partly it’s because pundits are bored with conventional policy discussion – and/or don’t want to be bothered learning enough to understand actually existing policy issues,"
Once, as a teenager, I complained to my grandfather about being bored. My grandfather then told me of something he learned as a boy. He had been complaining to his aunt, who was raising him, that something was "boring." She said to him, "then you really don't know much about it." My grandfather then told me that when he dug down and learned more about the topic, that he found it, in fact, to be interesting.
Pundits would do us all a favor if they were more intellectually curious. Shallow knowledge leads to lazy thinking. Instead of triggering the usual yawn, boredom should be interpreted as a signal to find out more, to search for a deeper understanding.
4
I don't often disagree with Paul Krugman, but he's really off the mark on this one. Maybe Democrats don't need "new" ideas, but they need to promote "good" ideas, loud and clearly. The leadership of the Democratic Party is not doing so at the moment, and it's enormously frustrating to the Democratic base (including many candidates). Being against an unhinged president is not enough. When Republicans promote tax cuts for the wealthy as tax reform, Democrats need to reply by showing what REAL tax reform is. Similarly for immigration, for health care, for foreign policy. Even if they merely lay out the alternatives in clear terms, they would show that they are the party of ideas. What happened to the party of the New Deal, Civil Rights, Human Rights, fighting poverty?
3
What happened is that Big Money bought some gigantic GOP propaganda machines, spreading lies on a daily basis, combined with a president who's expert in only one thing: tweets that are so controversial that they dominate the entire news cycle.
In that case, it's time for ordinary citizens to stop complaining about no longer hearing the Democrats' message, and start accepting that we don't need any more "talking". Now we, as citizens, have to ACT.
We know what the Democrats stand for, they've proven it time and again once they control DC, and they continue to prove it today (after all, it's thanks to them that Obamacare still exists, and that climate change spending continues to go up and not down, even under Trump - to name only two crucial contributions).
Now we'll only get our government back if "we the people" start to engage in real, respectful debates with Trump voters and with any progressive out there who still doesn't understand why he has to vote, and vote for Democrats.
If we don't google "Democrats tax reform", read a couple of links, and then start spreading the information ourselves, through our own social media and private discussions, the GOP's wealthiest donors will have the entire monopoly on "the news", and THEN part of the American people MAY still ignore what Democrats actually stand for.
In a democracy, we only have the government we deserve.
2
What happened to that old party is that a new idea ate them up: "Third Way" Clintonian triangulation politics.
26
Indeed! The DEM leadership council set the new direction for the DEM party.
Cater to Business and they would win!
Clinton delivered with NAFTA and the repeal of Glass-Steagall and here we are today with the best oligarchy Money could buy!
All that is missing is where to get the cash? Simple; Cut the actual money spent on the industrial-military-congressional-complex by at least 1/2 and we'll have a healthy country. All the military does in zillions of places around the world, is sow discord, arming conflicts that could be settled with sticks and stones or real diplomacy with aid that builds schools and health (especially reproductive) clinics instead of weapons.
3
New ideas are sought since the current solutions for universal health care and protecting the environment, say, involve some pain. We have to pay for health care (it's not like water, good clean pure water that faithfully comes out of our taps, costing only a pittance) and, to protect our environment, we have to restrain ourselves (drive more fuel-efficient cars, drastically reduce our use of plastic bags, lower the thermostat in winter, ...). What we need is the equivalent of the pill that is advertised as curing our malady without any restriction on our personal behavior; the statin that will lower our cholesterol without our bothering to reduce our consumption of fat and sugar (of course statins can be troublesome to our livers, but let's make believe they are side-effect free). That is the way for too many of us, new ideas are the way to avoid the maxim "no pain, no gain"; we insist on the gain without the pain, we insist on the pill that will cure cancer, just like penicillin cures bacterial infections, we insist on the little atomizer spray machine that will instantly remove atmospheric pollution.
3
Yep, I once asked a relative why, as a State Employee, she supported a party that consistently worked against her best interests. That party, historically and to this day, tries to keep her pay low and demonizes her worth as an employee. Her response? "Well, they're conservative."
7
Does conservative mean against sin? If so how does that square with our sinner in chief Trump? He lies, fornicates, cheats on his wives, uses prostitutes. Only thing we haven’t seen is murder.
1
The so-called two party system is not in our Constitution. In the world's history, we are the youngest country with the oldest standing government.
We need to dissolve all our political parties' controls by making any party membership by any office holder against the law!
Then we can have two parties: One party registered voters. The other party unregistered voters. The job of the registered is to get the unregistered to register and vote with the unregistered voters are in charge of running the elections.
Originally, the Founders formed political parties with one party in favor of protecting state's rights, the other party in favor of a strong federal government.
That was then 1787. Chaos and corruption is now.
1
I guess a lot of what people call “new ideas” are just ways to apply old ideas to new problems (which in turn are usually various combinations of old problems).
Don't sell the Republicans short on ideas. Look at all the ideas they keep coming up with to sabotage and obstruct justice all to protect a hideous little man who speaks ill of everyone including them. Think of all the ideas they come up with to refute Climate Change, taking health care away is good, and tax cuts for the rich is good for the poor and will lower the debt. It can't be easy to keep the base fooled for so long. And they do act on these ideas.
How do ideas from the Kochs, Adelsons, Mercers and trumps, that benefit them exclusively, help benefit the rest of us and the nation? Yet these few have more power, influence and ideas imposed on all of us through the people's own government.
Any good ideas the Democrats come up with will be immediately destroyed, falsely discredited and worse. Democrats need a better counter narrative to defeat these vicious attacks.
7
Corrected: "Name a potential Democratic candidate, ..." Yes, but the standard reaction has had some rationale, I think.
Al Gore didn't miss a chance to mess up in 2000. Mrs. Clinton was too grandiose. She assumed she was unchallengeable. She maybe smart but not unchallengeable. She was effectively challenged by Bernie Sanders. The Democratic stalwarts ganged up against him.
Instead of ditching Sanders she MUST have HUMBLY requested him to join the ticket. No matter who said what, she would be president now. She & her advisers, except Bill Clinton, assumed she would EASILY win.
Her advisers didn't tell her when she said 'Trump-voters’re deplorables' she might lose with that contemptuous comment. I would blame them for not telling her, she should have handled the email-server issue with greater humility and a sense of guilt (not criminal guilt, but poor judgment), she did so out of her lack of SKILL in handling modern technology. She should have turned over the server, soon after her appearance at the UN press conference.
The thing of it’s, she's just fine. We, the country (& the world too) are what’re suffering. Similarly, Al Gore is fine. He won the Nobel Prize & became very rich. But we witness the destruction of Iraq & then Syria with ISIS.
While at it, let me offer a great candidate for 2020. Mitch Landrieu. He is SOLID. He's quiet and unassuming, the opposite, personality-wise of Al Gore & HRC. He will win in 2020, given a chance by the establishment.
3
I would recommend to listen to a moving speech by Mitch Landrieu given on May 19, 2017. You may google & listen, or here, which may not be in par with that of JFK, FDR or MLK, but good enough: https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/national/full-speech-mitch-landrieu...
That Democrats need new ideas is a really old idea. Professor Krugman is offering a truly new idea: that Democrats don't need new ideas. I'm totally with him.
6
This column caused me to examine myself. If I were running for office, I would not have new ideas. But I would have better ideas than so many Republicans in power.
2
Politicians don't need new ideas. We need new politicians.
3
Let's make real what FDR proposed in 1944. These "old ideas" are what our country needs.
Let our country create a "Second Bill of Rights".
What rights?
—The right to a job
—The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
—The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
—The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
—The right of every family to a decent home;
—The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
—The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
—The right to a good education.
All of these rights spell security. .... For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.
5
Here is a new/old idea: improve our infrastructure!
While China builds infrastructure that surpasses ours, they are also pulling millions of people out of poverty.
Here in America, we debate bathroom legislation.
1
What about the millions people of all ages who aren't poor but economically insecure?
They fremain as usual, invisible.
1
Even millionaires may feel economically insecurity. 2008 made that even more acute.
Great material, as always, calling out both politicians who keep pushing old (and bad) ideas and their "nonpartisan" enablers in the media.
Paul, Paul, Paul. Seriously, “What matters is whether a politician has good ideas.” Have you not been paying attention? What matters is whether you can convince enough people who will, in all likelihood, be harmed by your bad ideas that they should get mad enough at the people supporting ideas that might truly help them and vote against them.
Think I’m unduly negative? Wade into any of the recent teacher demonstrations in red states. Ask those teachers why the tax cut and union busting candidates they keep electing appeal to them so much. Ask them how it is that so many of them identify as republicans when virtually every republican governor looks to cut education funding to make up for the hole in the budget they just blew giving tax breaks to their wealthiest supporters? Take a good look at what Texas, Arizona,Mississippi, Michigan, Kansas and West Virginia have done to educationbudgetsLwt me know if you don’t see a pattern here.
7
Professor Krugman, as usual, hits the nail squarely on the head when he says "We don't need politicians with new ideas, we need politicians with good ideas".
But we need to do some heavy lifting to get them. We need to get big dark money out of our elections. We need to do things like reverse Citizen's United, bring back the Fairness Doctrine, end gerrymandering and voter suppression, and get internet manipulators like Cambridge Analytica and paid Russian hackers and trolls out of our elections.
4
Krugman asks, "do we need any major new ideas?" on health care and the environment.
Sticking to the latter, I'd have to say, we desperately new ideas. For eight years Obama presided over the greatest expansion of oil and natural gas drilling the country has ever seen - all occurring while Obama spoke so eloquently on the need to slow down climate change.
Pundits like Krugman might be willing to ignore the obvious hypocrisy, but those who care about what condition we will leave the planet in for future generations should be unwilling to abide the hypocrisy.
We have two parties, of them, only one acknowledges that climate change even exists, but it backs an insane all-of-the-above strategy that will lead us to environmental Armageddon, just as surely as the Republican response to the problem.
The new idea we need to be searching for is how to wean the Democratic party off of the donations and lobbying of the oil and gas sector.
In 2016, HRC raised twice as much money from oil and gas interests as Trump. Still think we don't need any new ideas?
http://fortune.com/2016/09/07/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-oil-donations/
3
That idea already exists too. It's called campaign finance reform.
And guess who supports it?
Right, the Democrats - including Hillary.
And who opposes it and constantly makes things even worse, whether it's on the SC or in DC?
Right, Republicans.
No more excuses. Time to replace ALL Republicans in Congress with Democrats.
Only then will the next step become to try to turn them, from the inside, into a more progressive party. Which actually starts by engaging in LOTS of real, respectful debates, as ordinary citizens, with those of us who don't believe in progressive ideals yet ... .
It's easy to blame others. It's more difficult to take responsibility and act.
The same, of course, goes for climate change. The fossil fuel industry is receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies and tax credits each year. It's absurd to believe that in such a political landscape, you can be elected without any Big Oil donations (and yes, Trump financed ... his primaries himself, whereas his general election campaign was financed by the RNC, which traditionally receives MUCH more Big Oil donations than the DNC, remember?).
And of course we won't be able to drop oil overnight. So there's nothing wrong with expanding local drilling in order to make us more independent from the Middle East, AS LONG AS you also strongly increase clean energy subsidies, AND can get global agreements on climate change. And that is exactly what Obama and the Dems did.
"Name a potential Democratic candidate, ..." Yes, but the standard reaction has had some rationale, I think. Al Gore didn't miss a chance to mess up in 2000. Mrs. Clinton was too grandiose. She assumed she was unchallengeable.
She maybe smart but not unchallengeable. She was effectively challenged by Bernie Sanders. The Democratic stalwarts ganged up against him.
Instead of ditching Sanders she MUST have HUMBLY requested him to join the ticket. No matter who said what, she would be president now. She & her advisers, except Bill Clinton, assumed she would EASILY win. Her advisers didn't tell her when she said 'Trump-voters were deplorables' she might lose with that contemptuous comment. I would blame them for not telling her, she should have handled the email-server issue with greater humility and a sense of guilt (not criminal guilt, but poor judgment) and that she did so out of her lack of SKILL in handling modern technology. She should have turned over the server, soon after her appearance at the UN press conference.
The thing of its, she's doing just fine. We, the country (& the world too) is what's suffering. Similarly, Al Gore is fine. He won the Nobel prize & became very rich. But we witness the destruction of Iraq & then Syria with ISIS.
While at it, let me offer a great candidate for 2020. Mitch Landrieu. He is SOLID. He's quiet and unassuming, the opposite, personality wise of Al Gore & HRC. He will win in 2020, if given a chance by the establishment.
Mr. Krugman, your sense of ideas is policy-oriented, but what Democrats really mean is POLITICAL ideas: What will inspire voters to get energized about voting Democratic, which Obama inspired?
You'll recall that Obama wasn't campaigning as a policy wonk (though he was a wonk worthy of your calibre of admiration). He was campaigning as a candidate of new politics.
Your valid points about existing good policies that should be implemented well unwittingly get at the exact political issue: What's going to prevent eyes glazing over and inspire HOPE and activate voters?
We need a progressive sense of leadership that is new. Horrible as Trump is, he himself was the [phony] idea that inspired voters who hadn't voted in recent elections.
Democratic LEADERSHIP. What's the idea here that thrills the voter—Democrat AND Republican? What may an exciting middle-road progressivism look like?
1
One problem the media has is balance. When they report on one ill-considered idea, they always try to find another on the other side -- as if there are only two sides.
Throwing Trump at news consumers did manage to sell papers, but because journalists were embarrassed by the free coverage -- none of which hurt -- they tried to cover Hillary with the same arguments the Republicans (and the Russians) slung at her.
Still, I'd settle for a few new faces in the Democratic Party to confirm what the geezers have been proffering: universal health care, clean air & water and... campaign finance reform.
If we don't take the money out of politics -- and replace a small part of it with public funds -- we will continue to have charlatans and grifters in politics, working for the money and not for the people.
3
Point taken about the unfairness to Democrats. A compelling case can made that for all of their flaws, the Democrats have been far and away the more responsible party in the last four decades. By contrast, the Republicans have been the party of...well, how does one state this plainly without sounding hysterical? But think, for example, of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the financial meltdown in 2012, their staunch refusal to enact sensible gun control legislation, and you have a party that stands for war, poverty and murder. You have to conclude that the GOP's opposition to honesty and rationality is an expression of their values. Still, you have to hand to them: they remain true to their values. Just the other day, Mike Pence praised Joe Arpaio as a great patriot and defender of the rule of law. Not to be outdone, some House Republicans nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. Republicans don't merely settle for bad ideas; they go whole hog and push for insane ones.
2
Democrats want redistribution of wealth is the Republican cry.
What a terrible idea they chant. People need incentives to work and then you too can be a part of the American dream. Oh wait, the Kochs and company have already redistributed the wealth by 30 years of tax code writing, off shoring production and/or moving to right to work states and just plain union busting.
Yes, the .01% are growing richer by the day. They don't need medical insurance or any new ideas.
I think Dr. Krugman is correct there is a intellectual laziness at play. But it's not just the pundits. It's what former Supreme Court Justice David Souter called "civic ignorance," which he feared would spell the end of American democracy. Far too many voters don't even understand how their own government works, let alone the substantive issues. So when things go wrong we don't really know what went wrong and who is really to blame. Was it the Liberal Media Conspiracy? Was it the Deep State? Or maybe it was the Clinton Foundation.
So we just keep casting our votes for whoever comes along with promises to fix everything, like Donald Trump, who famously said "I alone can fix it." That's why we are forever "voting the bums out," yet somehow the bums are always still there.
Dr. Krugman, as an economist, it is surprising that you only referred to Republican policies related to inequitable distribution of resources. Traditional vs. progressive democrats place different emphasis and disagree on policy specifics about inequality.
The primary justification for new ideas to replace old, but proven, policy is the need to reconcile those policies with donor dollars. Politicians are constantly tripping over themselves to enact policies consistent with donor demands. If past policies are inconsistent with those demands, they have to be cloaked in "new ideas". Take the money out of politics and all of a sudden old ideas based on sound fiscal and social policy become far more acceptable.
1
Like a many a fine column, this one is provocative - intentionally - and its greatest value may be to serve as a corrective. (Although if it leads to a Biden candidacy, you can forget about things like single payer. PK is smart enough to know that half a loaf is better than none, but columns like this
all but take "the full loaf" possibility off the table.)
Moreover, PK goes for the low-hanging fruit in the 2 examples he uses. (Surely we DO need a new idea or 2 re immigration, education, opioids, etc.) Even there, the health care one is Swiss cheese-like!
He doesn't mention that the NHS' best days are now far in the past, ... and it isn't just Tory underfunding. PK seldom acknowledges that things that flew as recently as the 90's are now almost universally perceived to be ... un-affordable.
Doing more with less IS tricky - some would say impossible - and new ideas DO make a difference. (Actually, they're absolutely necessary!) A Dr. friend told me that until/unless U.S. doctors, hospitals, etc. cost significantly less than they do at present, we'll have to choose as a country between monstrously high costs and anything remotely close to "universal" adequate healthcare.
Again, a new idea or 2 would surely help here.
Saying that Obamacare got us "half way" (to a genuine "problem solved" state) there is imprecise, probably inaccurate ... and ignores the reality that the 2nd half is probably 10 times as hard to achieve as the 1st half in an area like this one.
We do need ONE new idea though: education reform allowing young Americans to get rid of the "political illiteracy", as Saul Alinsky called it, characterizing so many adults today.
We need a class on how a democracy works, concretely. A democracy can only thrive when each and every citizen is aware of the fact that the legislative process is necessarily and on purpose a very slow process, where public debate and committee hearings and as a consequence compromise are absolutely crucial and the only way to make progress towards fully achieving one or the other political ideal.
The only alternative is a dictatorship, where instead of debate and compromise, the head of the executive branch of government tells Congress to write this or that kind of bill and pass it, and then Congress obeys.
That also means that we HAVE to pay attention to who's doing what, in DC, to know who's working hard to achieve the next step towards full achieving those ideals, and who's actively trying to do the exact opposite of the ideals he was talking about during the campaign.
Today, too many Americans agree with ideals Democrats have indeed fought for for years and years already, but then blame them for only obtaining step by step progress, as if that's a BAD thing, putting them in the same category as entirely corrupt politicians promising X then doing the opposite.
So no, we don't need new ideas, but yes, we urgently need more political literacy, if not they'll merely remain ideals ... !
3
When I was in high school in Virginia in the 1960s to graduate you had to take (and pass) a course titled “Government.” Suspect this requirement is no more. Shame if that is true.
As usual, Krugman hits the nail on the head. GOP marketing has been superior to that of the Dems since Nixon's dog whistle 'Southern strategy' and 'law and order' campaign ideas, which built an enduring coalition of anti-tax, anti-abortion, anti universal healthcare, anti-minority and anti-worker groups that led to our current legislative gridlock, the GOP's lock on state legislatures and governorships and the debacle that is the Trump administration. "New and improved" works as well in politics as it does for consumer products from detergent to drugs to cars to gain and maintain market share and profits/power, which illustrates H.L. Mencken's trenchant observation: No one ever did not make money underestimating the intelligence of the common man."
2
Point of order: Apple is never ahead of anybody. They refine things that have been done for years and offer it to their fans in an appealing package. The kinks were worked out in real time by the actual innovators in the wild west of Android. Let the flame wars begin...
No, it's like materialism- like science-based understanding of our physical world- there are no new ideas on these subjects.
This is not about black holes and other worldly physics.
We have seen it all several times.
We are still rehashing the same old historic hash.
Go read the Communist Manifest again.
All the suffering and bleeding since the French Revolution led straight to it and the battle is still being fought over the same old ideas.
It is all too distressingly simple and irreconcilable.
There is plenty of room for compromise, just as you have said so many times before.
A few northern European countries have been able to make the compromise.
But here, since FDR, it has been a constant fight which the American middle-class has been losing.
And under the present, cynical structural design the home team is not favored.
1
"why, exactly, do we demand that politicians have new ideas?"
Because we still have so many national problems, and politicians still haven't figured out how to address them.
But there are many old ideas that worked very well in their time, and bear reusing today. Look at how FDR got the country out of the Great Depression. He created jobs for people. He established support net programs for them, too. He had dignity in office. He faced the greatest threats to our national security by establishing and then working crucial relationships with the rest of the free world. In a word, he exercised leadership.
Today, those are all new ideas. I say, let's give them a try. What have we got to lose?
2
What also matters is whether or not the politician has the spine to fight for whatever policy she/he believes in.
I agree there are plenty of good ideas. But there is no political will at the moment to expose the American public to what they are and how they would benefit all Americans, such as Single Payer or Universal Health care. Private insurers are in business to make money, not provide the best health care.
The public and the politicians are so inundated with daily doses of scandals from the Trump Administration, that it appears that the distractions will never go away and important work will never make it to a House or Senate hearing, let alone a vote.
2
Good ideas, and good character - which includes basic honesty.
3
I agree with you that Democrats don't necessarily need bright shiney new ideas.. What they need to do however is to start defending the old ones in crisp, clear, unambiguous language.
Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid for example are old ideas. They work. They are also very, very popular and increasingly necessary at a time when employers are jettisoning pensions and benefits at a record rate. Not only should the words entitlement reform be banned from the Democratic Party lexicon but Democrats should be pushing for more funding--i.e. eliminating the cap and expansion of Medicare to all Americans.
Progressive taxation is an old idea. It is also a good idea. Done properly it prevents the concentration of wealth into a few hands.
Preventing powerful financial firms from ripping off their customers is an old idea. It is also a good idea. Glass Steagal, for example worked. Too bad it was a Demoratic president to gave it the coup de grace.
The earned income tax credit is an old idea. It is also a good idea as is anything which helps low income Americans to help themselves.
Democrats used to be the party that defended American workers against unfair trade deals, unfair competition from undocumented immigrants and union busters. That was a good idea because regardless of race, gender or sexual orientation, most Americans work for a living.
Embrace your inner FDR, Democrats and do it with passion and compassion.
9
Rather than coming up with new ideas we should get rid of some of the old ones like the Republican's take on economics. For example, there is the trickle-down theory and the reverse Robin Hood thing.
7
For a change, I agree with you. The problem we have today is politicians. They may talk about corporate greed, bowing to the rich, the stressed middle class, etc.
Every bill that gets passed through Congress always has unneeded provisions or spending, due to a particular politician's WANTS, not needs.
If only we could do what Reagan did with the air traffic controllers; fire everyone in Congress and above, and start fresh.
It seems once these politicians are elected, whether they be Democrat, Republican, or other, their agendas change.
They no longer worry about their constituents. Rather, what it is they can get from the system to be reelected, whether good or bad for the PEOPLE THEY (supposedly) work.
Before we overhaul our systems and values, how about a constructive change in our political process.
If the political forces do not want to work TOGETHER, for the "good of the people", nothing will change!
5
Obamacare achieves 90% of what Democrats had promised to do under Obama on healthcare, it insures 20 million more Americans, and is saving an additional 40,000 American lives a year.
How cynical do you have to become to still believe that "once these politicians are elected, whether they be Democrat, Republican, or other, their agendas change" ... ?
Trump and the GOP promised to repeal Obamacare and replace it with something better, which, as candidate Trump said, would insure even more Americans than Obamacare, at even lower costs.
Now that he's president, he didn't repeal Obamacare, and it turns out that he never even had any concrete plan to replace it with. So he merely signed a GOP tax reform bill into law, which destroys the healthcare of 13 million Americans all while seriously increasing premiums for the others.
The only way to get a government that does what a majority of the American people want, is for ordinary citizens to finally start engaging and paying attention to who's doing what, concretely, in DC.
Cynicism has never helped us move forward, remember?
5
How cynical do you have to become to still believe that "once these politicians are elected, whether they be Democrat, Republican, or other, their agendas change" ... ?
You do remember Obama and healthcare.
As he suggested, If you like your health plan, you may keep it.
Something about "wake up and smell the coffee".
As a candidate for state office here in North Dakota, I could not agree with you more. There are about 3 ways to address any problem and how something is solved comes down to money and the willingness to work together. We are facing a budget crunch that is self-inflicted by the Republican super majority due to the tax cutting spree underway since the oil boom. We are now facing budgets cuts of 5-10% per agency and layoffs are the only way to make the targets. Yes, we are talking about laying off public servants - court staff, department of human services, university staff, you name it.
The solution is simple - raise taxes on corporations (currently revenue from corporations is 2.4% of the total collected) back to pre-oil boom levels and our problem is largely solved. But, to Mr Krugman's point, everyone is casting about for "innovative solutions", "creative ways" of using revenue, "tightening out belt in these tough times" etc etc, when in reality the solution is the same as it's always been since the day the first Pilgrim set foot on these shores: make sure everyone pays their share, don't give tax breaks to the really rich and/or corporations and stop stiffing the little guy. I'm not looking for new ideas, I'm working to make the old ideas, which work by the way, reality.
5
Both Obama and Hillary promised no new taxes on those with family income under $250,000--95% of the population. A new idea in American politics would be to abandon Ted Kennedy's practice of lying about the goal because of a refusal to finance it. Especially by the left-wing policy that is supposed to be for change.
$250
That's ridiculous.
Obama increased taxes on those earning MORE than $250,000, and cut many taxes for those earning less.
People who are spreading the idea you're mentioning here, are merely referring to the fact that Obamacare contains an individual mandate, so if you don't buy your own private insurance, you'll have to pay a small annual fee, rather than continuing to hope that you'll get HC for free ... and the fact that Obamacare contains a tax increase for indoor tanning, which some people earning less than $250,000 probably also use too.
But if those same people look at their new health insurance plans, they'll probably already have noticed that they are better and reimburse more, and if they're really paying attention, they know that Obamacare seriously curbed premium increases.
Obama and the Democrats also promised (as always) to cut the deficit they inherited. And Obama indeed cut Bush's $1.4 trillion deficit by two thirds.
Compare that to the GOP: they'd not only cut the deficit but lower the debt, and repeal and replace Obamacare with something, as Trump said, that would cover even more Americans, at even lower costs.
Instead, his only major legislative achievement until today almost triples the deficit (doubling it already this year), and destroys the healthcare of 13 million Americans all while increasing premiums.
But of course, if you prefer to ignore all this and focus on indoor tanning, you indeed can believe that it's Dems who lie ...
The problem with elected officials is they believe they owe a duty to creating legislation, which assumes that something in the current makeup of the country is so novel that a law must be passed to address it. Sometimes "new" things happen that do demand legislative attention, but I have long held the belief that were we to place expiration dates on laws this duty to legislate could be satisfied without muddying up the mix with "newness" for the sake of "newness" and besides, often laws which seemed to matter at the time are soon proven to be a waste of time and should be stricken from the record. But the real advantage of this would be to force a hard look at what is on the books as law on a periodic basis.
3
I'm not sure what US politicians are *governing* anymore. The fates of their constituents are more tied up with multi-national decisions that relocate jobs and a tax base wherever it's cheapest. States and municipalities become the objects of extortion by Big Business (to wit: Amazon's HQ2).
And when the political or economic disparities created by the extortion become too much to bear, we will get trade wars, and probably real wars after that. I just finished reading Sinclair Lewis' "It Can't Happen Here" published in 1935. An exposition on how fascism could happen in the USA. Movie rights were bought in 1936, with Lionel Barrymore set to play the lead, then the studio dropped it because it was afraid the movie would offend fascist governments in Germany and Italy. I.e., they wouldn't be able to keep making as much money in those countries if they released it. So it seems to me today, after the 1% makes all the money playing nice with countries whose governments are threatening to democracy, the working class and middle class get to go sacrifice their lives when it all blows up so a system can be restored to get the 1% what they want all over again. Dr. Krugman, is there any good old idea that can prevent this history from playing out over and over?
3
Britain, Canada, Switzerland... If their health care systems were more profitable, we'd copy them in a second.
We don't lack "good" ideas, we lack politicians willing to implement ideas that aren't tailored to the preferences of their wealthy patrons.
4
Except that the entire Democratic party is full of people not only willing to implement universal healthcare, but who have already proven that, as soon as "we the people" give them the legal power to do so, they have the competence and political courage to follow through and act.
The main difference with the countries you're mentioning here is that America has only two political parties and that since more than a decade now, one is merely a PINO: a political party in name only.
Those countries indeed do NOT have campaign finance laws that allow a handful of wealthy donors to take over an entire political party, which then lies on a daily basis to its voters and sacrificies EVERYTHING, including people's health and healthcare, to serve only those donors. And those countries don't have politicians either who are eager to become the slaves of those donors.
Only the US has. And that PINO was formerly known as the Grand Old Party.
We'll never get rid of this kind of problem and have serious HC as long as we can't call the guilty ones here by name and instead vaguely prefer "politicians".
Obama and the Democrats insured 20 million more Americans, Republicans try to pass bills that would destroy the healthcare of 30 million Americans and Trump's tax reform law already destroys it for 13 million Americans.
THOSE are the fact that count here. Ignore them, and we'll get stuck with the GOP forever.
5
Actually they do work. I lived in Britain for 6 years, 2 of my children were born there. The NHS was not perfect but it provided excellent care, no questions asked.
4
@ Bismarck
I think that by "profitable" Peter is referring to the idea that if more wealthy Americans would be able to increase their wealth through the profits generated by a universal HC system, than the US would have had such a system for a long time already.
However, the purpose of a universal HC system is, well ... universal HC, not generating profits for a handful of wealthiest citizens.
So we don't have universal HC yet ...
1
Regarding healthcare: A partial universal system is already in place with healthcare. It is called Medicare. Restrict Medicare payments to non profit hospitals and clinics. It makes no sense to line the pockets of stockholders of for profit institutions with public money or the premiums of patients. Let's see how fast those for profit institutions revert to non profits. Also, allow Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices. Finance medical students so that they do not have to take thousands of dollars of loans and then do not have to charge as much. There are some new ideas.
1
Nice but not doable under current statutes and regulations which mandate that Medicare (and Medicaid) pay "any willing provider" (non profit or for profit). Medicare patients have a right to see any willing provider though in Medicare managed care policies, e.g. from Aetna and United Healthcare, a referral must be obtained from the insured's primary care physician to see any specialist (except a psychiatrist) or the specialist won't get paid. The economics of medical practice trap specialists in the system since if they see even a single Medicare patient they must see any Medicare patient. As to Medicaid recipients, the Title X statute mandates that reproductive health services (except abortions) must be paid for if offered by any willing provider, a statutory regulation that prevents the defunding of Planned Parenthood. This hasn't deterred the GOP from going around the law in many states by passing draconian regulations on abortion clinics so that there is only one left in 7 states. In sum, nice ideas but ain't gonna happen.
I would like to see some good ideas in respect to social media and false news. The asymmetric soft power of being able to insert false news into another country's election campaign, while controlling and intimidating your own press at home, seems to have worked for Mr. Putin. No policies have been proposed, to my knowledge, to address this new development, which undermines democratic systems.
I agree. Enough with the new ideas BS.
All the Dems need to do is grab the playbooks of both Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt and run with it.
The problems we face today are basically the same: runaway corporate greed and a stressed working class.
9
"every prominent Republican for the past three decades has espoused the same three bad ideas: tax cuts for the rich, slashed benefits for the poor, and more pollution. "
Also "start wars".
7
Here is a new idea. Vastly increase the number of residency slots to vastly increase the number of practicing doctors. Cash payments for all routine procedures, insurance kicks in at higher amounts only. No need for the vast bureaucracy for insurance reimbursement when a routine doctor visit would be $50 cash.
Too bad, the AMA vehemently controls how many doctors can practice in the USA.
2
New ideas are needed not necessarily about policy content, but certainly regarding policy implementation. The way that government bureaucracies execute policy with strict rules, insufficient appreciation of genuine complexity, and a reliance on the big stick of legal enforcement make the experience of government intervention and programs onerous and often contradictory to intent. Third party accountants, lawyers and a host of others make it even more challenging.
Given where the U's; is, I would propose the following:
1) combine va prescription buying with medicare prescription. This volume buying power would be able negotiate a lower price.
2) Move towards Medicare covering all and force doctors and hospitals and urgent care clinics to accept or lose their license.
3) Reduce Medicare deduction for health care from 20% to 10%
4) increase tax on the top 10%. The fact is the problem isn't going to be solved by looking at only the 1%
5) Increase capitol gains tax.
6) Include both part-time and full-time in the coverage.
7) Increase the tax on corporations UNLESS they devote their profit to education and creating jobs- not rewarding the already wealthy with buybacks and options increases.
8) Remove out troops from Afghanistan and Iraq
8) put the savings into initiatives that off a realistic alternate and long-term fuel-Cold Fusion
This would be a starting point that can be adjusted as time goes on and ideas work or don't worked.
Finally, Electric cars are not the answer because after you charge your car then you have to plug the charges into a socket to recharge it continuing our need for fossil fuels.
With all the array of issues facing our country no single person or party has all the answers and we need to work and sort out the differences.
1
The real damage was done by Reagan in USA and Thatcher in Britain. Until they were in power the increase in wealth was at the same percentage rate for worker and the wealthy. The wealthy got about 40 times the income of the workers. Since they changed the system the wealthy have increased their income at approximately the same rate as before but the workers increase has barely kept up with inflation. The result is the wealthy now have hundreds of times the worker's income.
They are having difficulties investing that income as workers cannot buy more.
8
One area where we do need ideas is the question of how to prevent wealthy donors, corporation and other economic interests from dominating politics and government. Their influence grows with every election cycle. Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats seem to have any genuine interest in attacking the problem. The Supreme Court has given us Citizens United. Everybody recognizes the problem, but even the best and brightest of our politicians has not proposed any solution.
6
The reason why we got Citizens United in the first place is because unfortunately, many progressives simply don't pay attention and are as ill-informed as Trump voters.
Obama and Hillary, and most other Democrats, have opposed the SC Citizens United ruling from the very beginning, and vowed to end it as soon as they control DC (= as soon as "we the people" give them the legal power to end it).
And of course, from the very beginning (= 2010), they've proposed concrete solutions, that would indeed solve the problem once and for all. All that is needed is a bill that prohibits secret donations by corporations, unions etc., and a Constitutional Amendment making it impossible for future Supreme Courts to rule in similar ways.
https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/campaign-finance-reform/
2
And here's Bernie Sanders for instance, basically proposing the same ideas:
https://berniesanders.com/issues/money-in-politics/
And here's Nancy Pelosi's page dedicated to the concrete bills that would achieve exactly that:
https://www.democraticleader.gov/issue/campaign-finance-voting-rights/
The GOP on the contrary continues to support the conservative SC Citizens United ruling, and as the Huffington Post explained, wants the exact opposite of the Democrats on this issue:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/2016-campaign-finance-reform_us_578...
Conclusion: this is yet another issue where the difference between Democrats and Republicans couldn't be more clear, and where it's the Democrats who have all the good ideas - for almost a decade already.
Has anyone ever looked into what ties the conservative Justices have with the Kochs and the Spencers and Bannon? Citizens United didn't just materialize out of thin air...
Dr. Krugman, if universal health care is so easily solved, why dId you undermine Bernie's plan when he campaigned for it?
1
He didn't "undermine" it, he merely confronted us with the facts: single payer was NOT politically viable at the moment.
In other words, the battle to be fought was (and continues to be) preventing Republicans from destroying Obamacare, which is already bringing us very close to universal and affordable healthcare, but is a compromise, designed to be subsequently improved through new legislation.
The only realistic path was what Hillary proposed: adding a public option, and additional subsidies for those who have to buy insurance on the individual market but can't afford to do so today all while earning to much to be able to get the subsidies.
As long as you and I don't start informing ourselves about Obamacare and its alternatives, and don't start talking to our families, neighbors, colleagues, friends etc. who still vote for the GOP, people like Sanders will NEVER have the political power in Congress to go beyond Obamacare. THAT is what Krugman was saying at the time - and the election results have proven him right.
Today, improving Obamacare isn't even on the table anymore, and Trump's tax reform bill destroys the health insurance of 13 million Americans.
You cannot just ignore these facts and then concentrate on lofty ideals. Those ideals will only become reality once we focus on every step needed to get there, and today, the next step is getting GOP voters to understand why the ACA isn't a government takeover at all, and better than the previous system.
4
Quote: "What matters is whether a politician has good ideas."
*
This is a comment with a "point of view" trap....but the key question (as this piece actually points out) is this -- Good for which constituency?
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The Koch brothers are paying the Republicans for policies which are "good" for the Koch brothers and the rest of the one percent......but what we need are policies which are "good" for the rest of the community.
*
The real conundrum is that there seems to be a plurality of voters who vote for policies which are NOT "GOOD" FOR THOSE SELFSAME VOTERS. Go figure.
3
There are actually four ways to provide "universal" health care, Herr Professor. You omitted social health insurance such as that in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and in a slightly different form in France and Belgium. Variations of the social insurance approach are also used in the new EU Member States.
All of these social health insurance systems differ from the Swiss model. Given that there are more private elements in the latter, however, it may fit better in the US mess.
As you noted, various approaches to environmental protection have proven themselves as viable solutions (but green parties probably have a different opinion regarding their effectiveness). Athough some command and control measures are almost always needed to provide a framework for attaining a desired level of environmental quality, there are enough market-oriented measures such as certificates that work within such a regulatory framework. But to people such as Trump and Pruitt, who can't tell von Hayek from a hole in the ground, even measures based on liberal market theory are examples of commie dictatorship.
Even more important, ability to carry good ideas into practice that benefit not just the select few.
2
There is a resistance to workable, good policies and solutions, that the billionaire donation class despises but the public, if properly educated, would want.
Instead of pundits (not the Professor, but those he speaks about) confronting THAT question, they wring their hands and say nothing is working, give us new ideas.
Nothing is allowed to work, more likely.
3
Dr. K,
It is important that American's turn-out for the Mid-Term elections in November and support progressive candidates. It is entirely possible that the Congressional majorities in both the House and the Senate can change and begin to repair the damage done since the Tea Party election in 2010. High on the priority list is repeal of the Citizens United Decision and making a creative start at campaign finance reform.
Carole A. Dunn of Ocean Springs, Mississippi put her finger on it in her comments. But, I can promise all that campaign finance reform is not easy because there is a very influential industry which includes the media, local TV stations, National Association of Broadcasters, consultants, and the click generators on the Internet.
In my view, conservatives and liberals alike should oppose those who deny global warming. There are some conservative Democrats but none are crazy enough to deny global warming. There are also some progressive Republicans who would probably come down on the side of better environmental controls for health reasons but thus far the strategy of the GOP is to stay in lock-step with their Big Donors who strongly oppose acting on global warming.
The global atmospheric solution to climate change must be a very high international priority and will require the most creative minds, and technologies to make the transition away from fossil fuels. We need to vote for members of Congress who have open minds on the science of this issue.
4
I disagree with Paul Krugman's view that we already have enough good ideas, the problem merely implementing them. I find it difficult to imagine that in the next billion years intellectuals will not come up with new ideas that vastly improve the options we have.
Consider the barbarism of government. It has exterminated hundreds of millions of innocent people and, based on the evidence, we can expect that it will continue to exterminate innocents, whether by starvation, using hi-tech weapons or through low-tech assassination by the police. A good answer would be within our powers, not fantasy.
Or, the incarceration of people who do not deserve it, a practical ethical answer within our power is desperately needed by so many people.
Consider the pervasive inequality of political power. Do we have a practical answer that we can implement, even when opposed by those at the top of the political food chain?
Consider ending the oppression of the Palestinians and applying justice to the evil-doers. The answer has to be something we can do, even when some oppose justice.
We need ethical answers that don't require the opponents joining us, or not opposing us, but practical ways within our powers to implement in reality.
If only we could come back in a billion years and see the great results of the ethical answers that future intellectuals will provide us.
3
Politics isn't about solving the problems "our" society will face within a "billion years", it's about solving the problems we have NOW and in the foreseeable future.
Climate change TODAY is such that if we don't react very fast (= within the next decade) and in a very serious way, within a couple of centuries human civilization (only 12,000 years old, if you don't take writing into account, and only 5,000 years old if you do ...) won't even exist anymore.
Nobody is denying that the future won't bring new challenges (although imagining that there will still be humans on this planet a billion years from now, knowing that the earth only exists for less than 5 billion years and that homo sapiens, our species, only exists since 300,000 years, is quite ambitious ... ).
The point of this op-ed is to remember that on all urgent political questions today, the problem isn't that we don't know what we should do to solve them efficiently, and the problem isn't either that no politicians are defending those solutions.
We know what is needed, and it's Democrats who have all the right solutions, whereas Republicans are constantly rejecting them. So THIS is where the political fight should concentrate on today, because those are the battles that have to be won first, if we still want to be able to discuss politics within 500 years.
1
Prof Krugman is a voice of clarity, evidence and reason in an age that cherishes none of these qualities and has staked its economy on the opposite.
4
The problem of course are the good ideas almost always benefit the common good, which, for decades is opposed to the private good---which, translates into a bad idea for the upper 1%, the GOP, and all the lobbyists on K street.
6
New? I'd be happy with the better of the old ideas. Just do it.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt announced his plan for what he called a "Second Bill of Rights" in the State of the Union address of January 11, 1944.
Roosevelt's argument was that the "political rights" guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights had "proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness". His remedy was to declare an "economic bill of rights" to guarantee these specific rights:
- Employment (right to work), food, clothing and leisure with enough income to support them
- Farmers' rights to a fair income
- Freedom from unfair competition and monopolies
-Housing
- Medical care
- Social security
- Education
8
Remember when we had a president who had the courage to deregulate the transportation industry? Boy, what a great Republican Jimmy Carter was. Think of how he would deal with Big Pharma, if he were president today? I don't think we will see the likes of him again in our lifetime.
1
Dear Paul Krugman, respectfully, please stick to Economics. Don't push the Third Way Democrats anymore.
They and the GOP are behaving like Third World politicians (I Immigrated from one and can smell these people a mile way.) They spout what their political advisors say, to voters to get the votes and go back to Washington or the State Capitols or even local Governments and do what they want. Voters don't have time to check up on every action of Governments at each level. We have to work to make a living or get ahead. Politicians serve the people who give them money to get elected. Just look at the amount of lobbyists at every level as an example.
Your ideas are great but we still have immense inequality, more working age people in prisons, and even the ACA which got us part way costs each individual (those not subsidized) almost as much money as rent just for bare healthcare, explain that. Electing another Trump (who does not pay income taxes,) Hilary Clinton, Joe Biden, (and hate to say this) another Obama will do nothing, nothing to solve income inequality, in the Gilded Age we live in. And I write as a struggling entrepreneur.
We need the next generation to take over Government, they are stuck with the bills in any case, from profligate Boomer Generation Presidents spending at will and various GOP Congresspeople feathering their own pockets before retiring. They should all step aside, time for a wholesale change.
1
With all respect, that's not how a democracy works.
In a democracy, "we the people" only have the government we deserve, as it's we who elect it in the first place.
So if as a citizen you don't pay attention to who's doing what in DC, and then regularly consult different political media sources, your vote will always be a vote that is detached from reality and as such, may often even have the opposite effect of what you'd want.
Let's take the ACA for instance. For decades, Democrats have tried to change the HC system in order to obtain universal HC. Time and again, Republicans in Congress were given too much power by "we the people" for them to be able to succeed, until Obama came along, and we finally gave them the 60 Senators they need.
But even then, a third of those Dem Senators were representing blue states or even red states, where Republicans were constantly spreading lies about the bill.
That's why this time, the only option was Romneycare, a compromise bill that even GOP presidential candidates had already supported, and that insured already 2/3 of those who still didn't have insurance, all while saving 40,000 additional American lives a year.
And having healthcare insurance IS an important way to reduce inequality, remember?
Unfortunately, as many people indeed weren't paying attention, they believed the horrible GOP lies about it, and ... voted the Dems out of Congress a couple of months later.
ALL radical change, in a democracy, is step by step change.
We can solve our problems by raising taxes on the rich, cutting defense spending, and Medicare for All. It ain't rocket science.
8
I'm not really in tune with 'new ideas' or what policians are saying. I'm mostly in tune with the rights of American workers, and I'm frankly disgusted with the status quo and the so called 'solutions of redistribution' provided by economists.
New ideas are required to create a new dynamic given the prominance and importance of the Chinese economy.
Ok, we've failed on health care and the environment.
Mr. Al Gore, you will not get approval of your agenda without the support of labor.
I know the world could end if we don't address this now, but how dense are you to ignore the priority list of survival?
Water, Food, Clothing, Housing, Social security, and finally ENVIRNMENT.
Most people are living in the lower portions of survival, so giving more talks will not solve this. It has to be approached from the standpoint of human survival, and I think I stated the priorities which we all live by. Financial issues are NOT related to human survival, so why is so much attention dedicated to it? Think a bit more, empathize a bit more, and come back to us with a more persuasive argument, please.
Your last movie, Mr. Gore, was a total failure. Why? Think.
Actually, the "Who cares, I'm distracted by Real Life. That's the important stuff" argument is unpersuasive. Frankly, it's intellectually lazy also.
There are many forms that this argument takes. All of them boil down to "Ok, we admit it's happening, but what about [fill in the blank]". This is an appeal to the forces that drive something called the 'tragedy of the commons'. Convenient cover for those who don't want to change their behavior, and they can select something from a menu of what-about-ism arguments that seem to resonate for them. Feels a little better than Not My Problem.
So I'll answer your question, and by the way, I have no idea if it's premise is true or not, why Al Gore's last movie was not a success. Because everyone has already fixed their viewpoint. I didn't go because I don't need to, I understand the issue, not because his argument is less important than your list.
Which brings me to that list specifically. Think about each one. I'll start you off with an obvious one. If you destroy the climate balance, where will the food grow? Each one has a similar set of questions, and none of the answers are good.
1
"So why the demand for new ideas? Partly it’s because pundits are bored with conventional policy discussion.... Partly it’s just an excuse for sneering at Democrats..."
The motivation to discover new ideas also includes the ongoing political stalemate. People are looking for ways to solve problems that skirt around controversial issues. Which in turn leads to another problem: the effort to hide the flaws latent in the newly articulated approach.
What bothers me is when they talk about the need for new faces, and then discount newcomer Elizabeth Warren because of her age. For the younger generation who came of age in the Reagan era, her ideas ARE new.
3
Mr. Krugman is right about not needing new ideas. The Dems have had only one idea since Franklin Roosevelt and the evidence is that it works like a charm: Reach into the pockets of productive people (mostly Republicans) and give their earnings to unproductive people (mostly Democrats) in exchange for votes; Democrats as fun-loving grasshoppers, Republicans as hard-working ants. I suppose an economist like Krugman would just call that division of labor.
Any evidence to back up such a claims ... ?
Do you know that the wealthiest states (in terms of thriving economy and per capita income) are actually the blue ones, and the poorest ones, where most of the people live on government welfare, the red ones, for instance ... ?
Yes, Democrats increase taxes on the wealthiest citizens, because that's what those wealthiest citizens caring about income inequality WANT them to do - together with a clear majority of the American people (which is why Trump, during the campaign, promised to do so too, remember?).
But they also LOWER them on the middle class (see Obama's Stimulus for instance), all while changing laws so that profits don't go exclusively to a handful of wealthy stockholders, but go at least in part back to the truly productive people who are responsible for those profits in the first place.
And that's what Obamacare does for instance: on the one hand it mandates health insurance companies to finally start delivering the product people are paying for, and on the other hand, it mandates them to reimburse 80% of what they receive in premiums in care, rather than sending it directly to Wall Street and then refusing to reimburse anything because of "pre-existing conditions".
Result? As the CBO predicted, 20 million more Americans insured, cost increases curbed, a lower deficit, and of course, less people sick so more people being "productive" - regardless of their political affiliation.
Time to update your info... ;-)
2
Where is this purported 'grasshopper land' you speak of?
I'm a democrat who works hard and am very good at what I do, yet I've seen my pay stagnate, and actually drop in inflation adjusted terms for the last 15 years.
Oh, and I pay plenty of taxes.
Do you have evidence for your ridiculous claim that Republicans are more productive than Democrats? If not you should crawl back under the rock you emerged from.
I agree with Krugman that there are plenty of (relatively) old ideas which are still quite good, but require what Krugman calls a "progressive" majority (and I call a Democratic majority) to adopt and implement them.
However, politicians are not ideas. And while good ideas can remain good ideas, politicians do tend to get a little stale after a while.
Yes, Nancy Pelosi is an incredibly effective legislator and vote counter, with some very good ideas and a good track record. However, she has baggage. She played a role in tilting the last Democratic Presidential nomination from Sanders to Clinton. Her rather pro-Israeli stance is too pro-Israeli for many, albeit still popular with many.
Pelosi is not the only one with baggage. I believe it was a few years ago that I checked, and Chuck Schumer of New York had received some $118 million in contributions over the last decade, much of it from the insurance industry.
I agree that Republicans have been quite successful recently, touting and implementing their agenda of tax cuts for the rich, more defense spending. Perhaps, with some new blood, Democrats could do the same with a much better agenda.
Longevity in office, substantial contributions from corporations that (according to the Supreme Court) are now people, much time spent interacting primarily with lobbyists and with other Washington power players, and making too many of the compromises that are necessary to get anything done all add to a politician's baggage
1
Greed is corrupting all the ideas which could/would improve our nation and world. So many positive measures could be stimulated to enhance everything from health care to our environment if many of the wealthy were more concerned for the well being of the nation/world than accumulating more wealth. Our congress is more interested in the money received for their next campaigns than the welfare of the nation. So there is more fracking and off shore wells and reduced mpg requirements and tax cuts which remove health care for many, and over priced medicines, etc.
1
New ideas? Whatever. I’d be happy with the New Deal and the Great Society. Both are better—and newer—than the social Darwinism and laissez-faire capitalism that are currently being promoted by the Republicans.
2
I seem to remember (maybe I'm wrong) that Mr. Krugman summarily dismissed, yea even ridiculed Bernie Sanders' Medicare for All insurance proposal during the presidential primary when he was rooting for Hillary. Nice to see that he's now conceding at least that it's one of three proven-effective healthcare systems we could adopt if only our politicians listened to us instead of their corporate donors.
1
The reason why people like Obama, Krugman etc. refused to support/promise to sign single payer into law back in 2008 is because they knew that there was NO way to do so in Congress, as there was NO majority supporting it - NOT because of one or the other intellectual/moral/... reason.
And today, with the GOP controlling all levels of government, the fight to be fought is to try to defend Obamacare from their constant attacks.
You can't obtain anything in DC if you don't concentrate on the fight of the day, and instead only focus on unrealistic ideals.
As Saul Alinsky has shown, the only way to achieve real, radical, lasting, democratic, non violent change, is to go standing in the mud and work hard to move us one step closer to the finish line, celebrate that step forward, and then start the fight for the next step.
Too many people ignore this (Alinsky calls them the "politically illiterate"), go standing at the sidelines, and if they see that the others managed to get one step closer to the finish, they merely yell "not enough!". Needless to add that that's not very helpful, to say the least.
Obamacare allows any state that votes for it to immediately install single payer.
Hillary's public option would have accelerated that dynamic - and was designed to do so.
Krugman is right, it's not the ideas that have to be changed, it's people's tendency to get discouraged if change doesn't happen overnight.
"But let’s... ask a simple question: why, exactly, do we demand that politicians have new ideas?"
I believe Keynes answered that question back in 1936:
“The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back."
- from The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money
Good ideas come in many categories.
Good ideas can be about reality-- at least based on good evidence and well confirmed science--natural, social as well as well founded history and philosophy.
Good ideas can also be about ideals-ideality. As one comment put it--democracy as government FOR common people is an old good idea that never came to fruition.
Good marketing ideas are how we got Trump and never got democracy.
This is a straw man. By beginning with the assertion “Name a potential Democratic candidate, and you know how pundits will react: the same way they reacted to Al Gore and Hillary Clinton. He/she (especially she), they’ll say, is tired, boring, annoying. Above all, they’ll complain, he/she doesn’t offer any new ideas,” Krugman then launches into a criticism of the supposed demand that progressives are searching for unnecessary novelties.
In reality, the criticism of Hillary Clinton by progressives was focused on her unwillingness to embrace fully any of the three universal healthcare methods. The one closest to her position, that employing mandates and regulation but relying on private health insurance, was always suspect because of the cozy relationship of businesses in the healthcare sector with moderate Democrats, and the fact that this alliance in 2009 brought us an incredibly expensive kluge through the efforts of guys like Lieberman and Baucus. Having seen where that went, progressives were in no mood for incrementalism 2.0, and rather than ask for new ideas, they merely asked to try a different old idea.
To be successful at the polls, Democrats will have to find a feasible set of policies in healthcare, the environment, economic inequality, and more. But we won’t get there by having some Democrats misrepresent the positions of others to maintain the status quo.
1
Actually, Paul, I'd like the Democrats to return to an old idea: democracy.
5
Deeply conservative voices have long advocated the de-funding and dismantling of the federal government arguing that things had gone too far. The Trump government has taken that message to heart, slashing revenues from taxes, gutting departments left and right by not filling essential management posts, attacking semi-independent departments like the FBI and Justice, blathering about the "deep state", appointing long-time enemies to head departments like the EPA, Energy and Education. Republicans are in short, anti-government.
The only rational counter to that is to have a Democratic party that is unapologetically pro-government. That starts with getting statistics together about actual federal employment and producing compelling stories about what the federal civil service employees produce with copious cost benefit success stories. Getting every constituency to understand the benefits that they have been receiving that they don't even recognize as coming from federal programs. Until government has advocates it will remain the victim of Conservative lies and distortions that characterize it as the villain.
3
Politicians will always need new ideas, whatever happens, what renews and updates our world are new ideas.
There is a big third problem. Inequality. Inequality will come to haunt the plutocrats when they find that most of the public does not have adequate income to buy their products. Economy will become stagnant. People will live from hand to mouth and many will be homeless.
There is a fourth problem. Decreasing access to college education or even good K-12 education.
Tax cuts for the rich will not solve these two problems. Higher taxes for the rich will. This will never occur under the Republicans.
Under the Republicans, we will see role reversal between USA and China. China the prosperous and America the miserable.
Along the same lines, the other criticism always leveled at Democrats is that "they can't just be against Trump/Republicans, they have to stand for something."
What tripe! As a lifelong Democrat/progressive, I know exactly what Democrats are for, and I think these are all things that the vast majority of Democrats support (and Republicans are against, at least in terms of their policies and not the lip service they pay while scamming their base into voting for them): treating all human beings with respect regardless of race/ethnicity/gender/nationality/etc; limiting the power of corporations to exploit workers, consumers and the environment; providing a decent safety net and excellent education to everyone to level the playing field; the rule of law and freedom of speech; helping to support families care for children, the elderly and the disabled; maintaining our nation's infrastructure; taxing those who are better off more to pay for these things and reduce economic inequality; using diplomacy and international aid to reduce international conflicts before using our military; reducing the military budget to be more in line with every other nation on earth.
Did I miss anything? Oh, yeah, we really HATE Trump, because he is the mortal enemy of all of these!
4
We talk about fake news, but we have been seeing it for decades. There are plenty of cues that tell us the media and journalism ... journalists ... right-wing think tanks, and the whole system on both sides is fake, rigged against certain ideas and facts that are taboo. They talk about how bad Demcrats ideas are, but even when they get elected those ideas are just some kind of fake hope ... like ObamaCare - some mild improvement in image at a huge cost, and new legal responsibilities. Meanwhile all of us are being looked at, sorted and threat-assessed as to who has seen, read or though what - all at the time same time America diverges from the rest of the developed world. We are 80 years back in the past reliving the cycles of history ... will it be any different this time? People have lost their memory, and institutions have lost their institutional memory.
I don't know where to begin on this tripe. It's got nothing to do with new ideas, but allowing the ideas of the Progressive wing of the Party to be expressed and not sabotaged by the Democratic leadership, whose ideas have resulted in the Democratic Party being wiped out at every level of government and over a thousand seats lost in statehouses and congress throughout the country. Yet you still have Pelosi saying she doesn't feel voters want a new direction. We have seen collusion by the DNC and the Hillary camp to rig the primaries, and now the Hoyer tape showing more collusion and rigging by the DCCC in this years Colorado primary. Mr. Krugman, you can help by pointing this out, but you gloss over the fact that the good ideas are stifled by the leadership, a group you never seem to call out. People sneer at establishment Democrats because they know they are being gaslighted.
2
‘No new ideas’ is short for ‘No new ideas to limit Hispanic immigration or public services for the poor’. Until there is another Great Recession, these are the issues that count in the 2626 counties that voted for Trump. Progressive public policy might matter in the 487 counties that voted for Hillary but, well, there are only 487 of them.
Counties matter less than people. The counties that voted for Hillary have more people, millions more. in a real democracy she would have won.
The big lie is that politicians and the powers that be CARE about what is good for the American people. They don't.
Everything is about what is good for the corporations and the wealthy. And this has insidiously happened over the last 30 years. Under Trump it is patently obvious.
With the exception of a few voices which are rarely heard in the mainstream media ( Ralph Nader, Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal) and a few activists, the warnings about The Big Lie have been mostly ignored.
The " American People " have been blithely complicit in the fall of the Republic, choosing for years to ignore the signs of its demise and opt for ignorance and false hope.
Now that the corruption and venality are in plain site everyone is wringing their hands and saying it's Trump's fault. It is everybody's fault. We brought this on ourselves.
The solutions are all there. But they can no longer be implemented. Kudos to those who continue to fight. But they may be too few and too late.
How many Democrats would give up their Medicare coverage for a public health plan like Britain’s NHS?
1
"every prominent Republican for the past three decades has espoused the same three bad ideas: tax cuts for the rich, slashed benefits for the poor, and more pollution."
Correction. Republicans have consistently promoted another bad idea: more war, more defense spending, let's start another one, more defense spending...rinse, repeat
2
I saw a similar trend in my former teaching career. Administrators paid bonuses for shiny new curriculum gimmicks, and found the money in deferred maintenance of the existing school.
My favorite old idea: trains. Back in the '60s, I took the train from NYC to my hometown in South Carolina at least twice a year, and I can't understand why, in such a large country, there are now fewer passenger trains to fewer cities. (I used to leave Penn Station at 10 a.m. and arrive in Columbia around 10 p.m.; now the only train on that route stops in Columbia around 3 a.m., assuming it's on time.) Denying the tracks option to those of us who have come to hate flying (isn't that everyone these days?) makes no sense, considering fuel costs and flight congestion. Keep the self-driving cars and let me relax on a train ride again.
3
It's true enough that new ideas aren't what politicians need, but I don't think that that was the complaint that made Gore and Clinton unelectable. It was partly that they were personally boring, which shouldn't matter but does. But, especially for Clinton, the complaint was that they didn't have ideas, period. Instead they had focus groups. Was that an entirely fair complaint? No, not entirely, but nobody could possibly confuse either Gore or Clinton with Bernie Sanders, who said right at the beginning that the big ideas most important to him were free college tuition and universal health care, and those ideas were the core of his entire campaign. Or, lord help us, Trump, whose big ideas were building a wall to keep Mexicans out and building a structure of laws to keep Muslims out. For all their awfulness, he didn't get those ideas out of focus groups; nobody was talkiing about a wall until he /created/ a constituency for it.
You’re right nothing new needed, I think it’s actually a matter of priorites and focus. It starts with defining what the primary priority of government is in this country. Is it to get out of the way and let a very small percent of people win while the rest live in poverty? This is the view of the right. Or is it it to act in ways that allow many to thrive and keep the few from taking it all as well as the other few from suffering in poverty? Seems to me the Dems have to get a simple message something like this and repeat it over and over just like the Republicans have repeated government is bad for so long. The focus will be on how we will do these things and as Paul stated there are many ways. Problem is Dems run on the many diffferent ways and that is a way too complicated message to win.
2
Re:For example, the related discoveries that moderate increases in the minimum wage don’t seem to reduce employment
Is Professor Krugman correct ?
NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES
MINIMUM WAGE INCREASES, WAGES, AND LOW-WAGE EMPLOYMENT: EVIDENCE FROM SEATTLE
http://www.nber.org/papers/w23532
NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
Abstract
"This paper evaluates the wage, employment, and hours effects of the first and second phase-in of the
Seattle Minimum Wage Ordinance, which raised the minimum wage from $9.47 to as much as $11
per hour in 2015 and to as much as $13 per hour in 2016. Using a variety of methods to analyze employment
in all sectors paying below a specified real hourly rate, we conclude that the second wage increase
to $13 reduced hours worked in low-wage jobs by around 9 percent, while hourly wages in such jobs
increased by around 3 percent. Consequently, total payroll fell for such jobs, implying that the minimum
wage ordinance lowered low-wage employees’ earnings by an average of $125 per month in 2016."
6
Woof - you omitted the last sentence in the abstract: "We estimate an effect of zero when analyzing employment in the restaurant industry at all wage levels, comparable to many prior studies." I think that means there were fewer hours worked in low pay jobs because there were more hours worked in higher pay jobs.
If there was just an 'app' for effective governance we'd be set. But alas, we are in the midst of liberal democracies battling for relevance in a world with parallels to the Roaring 1920s. We may not need many new ideas but there is plenty of work to be done still to defend against some very old and dangerous ideas that once were thought to have been relegated to the dust bin of history.
1
You bet American politics needs new ideas! And the most important new idea of all, is worker ownership as a mass-scale economic model. THAT is how we will finally tackle inequality in a fundamental and thorough manner, and in the process, bring about a resurgence in democratic values.
4
If you recommend worker ownership you know its history and effectiveness but where is the general media coverage of the concept? Will not happen as the free press is further concentrated by the day.
Maybe time to reactivate the mimeographs and stand on the street corners?
It has been happening in South America, Europe and Asia and could sped further in the States over time were needed.
1
You did kind of pick the easiest problems. Coming up with an immigration policy that's widely supported by the American people and balances the interests of Americans against those who would like to be Americans, or a trade policy that actually helps American workers (rather than Goldman Sachs or Google), or a substance abuse policy that actually reduces the number of people who ruin their lives with dependency, or an electoral reform policy that counteracts the well-established tendency of US democracy to favor elite interests without resorting to tactics that are distasteful to most Americans, such as giving tax dollars to politicians for their campaigns, are all a lot harder intellectually than just adopting the German healthcare system. And I could add dozens more examples to that list.
2
The policies you suggest be developed would be complicated because the issues are complicated. Complicated doesn't win elections, because elections are decided by emotion. Elections are won by personalities, charisma and, unfortunately demagoguery...and gulp, lies. Democrats aren't very good at demagoguery and most of them have a reluctance to lie.
‘Progressives’ has crepe into Paul’s language as has universal health care and rising minimum wage. If you follow this pundit you may have seen this occurring after the ’16 election.
We await free tuition to join enhanced infrastructure, which he has supported, but no nod to Sanders the idea man.
The Democrats do need to become Progressive and stand by concepts directed at what is yet with us, in this period of ‘Republican Recover’, aimed at the general population not the existing corporate elite. Or else, more of the same.
The BIG idea that the Democrats must address is how to protect workers and help both the lower- middle-class. By all means let's have universal healthcare, and let's once again actually protect the environment, but how about the disaffected workers with stagnant wages or those whose jobs have been shipped out of the country or automated out of existence. Raising the minimum wage is a simplistic solution assuming people have jobs. Hillary Clinton lost those voters in the Upper Midwest and the Electoral College because she had no "new ideas" on how to address those problems. The Democrats need to push back against the anti-union trend; they need to advocate for a Job Retraining and Employment Act (aka a Job Security Act) that will require displaced workers training for a new job paid for by their former employers to counter technological obsolescence and outsourcing. Unions must also have a prominent place at the table to insure that any trade deals are fair deals to American workers. In short, there must be new ideas, a ReDeal, to regain the trust and support of the traditional Democratic base--lower- and middle-class workers who've been ignored by them and Republicans for too long. Donald Trump stole the mantle of populism, but has delivered a Raw Deal rather than a Real Deal to those who took a chance on him as an agent of change. It's time for Democrats to embrace a ReDeal rather than hope an anti-Trump wave allows them to continue with old ideas and ignore workers.
7
By new ideas people want politicians to solve problems without any new taxes or even lower taxes and without any inconvenience to them. It's what Trump promised and 43 million people believed.
8
One old idea that could really use a comeback is to actually go out and vote (or stay home and send in your mail-in ballot.) Maybe it's the magnifying effect of social media, but I have never seen so many people expound at length about why they weren't going to vote in the election.
10
Not difficult to understand the lack of a reasonable choice, many having been disappointed before by the gap between promise and performance in the state of “Democracy Incorporated.”
But the decline in civic participation began long ago documented in Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone as the social contract was being destroyed; the 2016 election just made it ‘so clear.’ The millianians not having been there may turn the tide in coming years – hopefully.
I p8, perhaps we could replace "progressive" with "clear thinking" or "logical" or "concerned with welfare of the majority rather than the few", or one of many, many other descriptors. While the definitions of progressive include both liberal and libertarian, accurately replacing the liberal label would put the onus on opponents to explain a factual, rather than dogmatic opposition. Well, at least those not named McConnell, Ryan, et al.
3
Completely agree with Krugman. Here are some no-brainers that mysteriously (or corruptly) elude the grasp of our politicians:
1. Proper taxes. Every household bringing in more than $500,000 p.a. is clearly rich. All income above that number should be taxed at 50%. All loopholes for carried interest should be abolished. Hardly revolutionary. Would transform our national finances, education and infrastructure budgets, and put the brakes on the inequality that is corroding our democracy.
2. Clean Energy. Global warming is (1) a horrifying and urgent menace and (2) a huge economic opportunity. It would be very easy and economically beneficial to incentivize wind, solar, etc.
3. Decriminalize and tax weed. Massive fiscal boom. Massive savings on incarceration costs. Massive boost for criminal justice and racial equality.
4. Krugman deals with this. Cheaper. Much better health outcomes.
5. Cut military budget. There is no need to spend more on the military than the next 7 countries combined. Spend more than the next 4 countries combined.
6. Incentivize corporations to pay US taxes and repatriate profits. Lots of ways to do this. Sticks and carrots.
7. Slash prison sentences by 20%. Save $billions, reduce injustice.
22
Let's face it. Neither the GOP nor the Democratic Party have enacted any "new ideas" over the last 50 years. The last substantial new ideas in American governance were LBJ's Civil Rights Act and Medicare and Medicaid.
(Yes, Obamacare was a noble attempt, but it's a Rube Goldberg monstrosity hamstrung by the political necessity to bow to the dictates of America's medical, insurance and pharmaceutical cartels. The deck of cards was reshuffled - but the odds are still heavily in favor of "the House" and patients continue to be fleeced.).
Thus for decades the two parties have been engaged in a protracted siege, with ideological battle lines drawn as firmly as the trenches on the Western Front in WWI (where millions died fighting over the same few square miles while the lines barely moved).
To break this stalemate, one side needs to be decisively defeated. The GOP is obviously on the losing side of history (demographically, economically and culturally) - but they ruthlessly deploy more divisive weapons (Fox News, Citizens United, gerrymandering, K Street, fearmongering, racial demagoguery and endless lies).
Thus it's only We the People who can dislodge the entrenched GOP by voting to give Progressives the political power they need to do what should have been completed forty years ago (universal health care, a revitalized secondary educational system, a massive infrastructure rebuild, end regressive taxation, etc.).
"They got the guns but we got the numbers." - Jim Morrison
7
Major environmental legislation was passed beginning around 1970. Was that a new idea? In any case, it hadn't been done before. Now it's being torn down, but that's just one example of an "old" idea that remains worth fighting for.
3
Stan, you're absolutely right. I originally included the EPA (1970 as I recall) at the end of my initial paragraph, but with a 1,500 character limit - I had to remove it to insert more pivotal points.
But kudos to you for noticing this omission - particularly now that it's being systematically destroyed.
I'd like to see a new perspective that priorities problems of racial inequality. Puts it on the very top of the list in terms of resources and budget.
An inspired and cogent educational reform policy.
And I would so love to see clarity and guts from a candidate who wants to undo the damage of the Jim Crow drug laws. Who prioritizes pardoning and releasing those who were cruelly sentenced, and who runs on a platform of reforming the laws who put them there.
Yeah, Democrats have most eventually fallen into a decent line on these issues, but there isn't enough emphasis, clarity, and not enough strength and courage.
There are lots of Joe Arpaios out there, and they did just fine under President Obama. He didn't like it, but he didn't have the clout he needed.
If you run on a platform that prioritizes ending the most obvious examples of human suffering, like homelessness and mass incarceration, perhaps those of us with lesser problems might trust that we'll be taken care of as well.
Yes, Democrats are vaguely on the right side of the fence on these issues, but they aren't impassioned enough.
In short, run on a platform of courage.
3
Democrats need to win state governments before they can get rid of bad state drug laws (or bad state or local officials.) Obama did reform federal drug laws and released thousands of prisoners. That does nothing for your issue, however.
The Republicans need new ideas because they don't like any of the ideas that will work. Their objective is to get rid of social programs and make the rich richer and more powerful and the rest of us not. So they have to figure out new ways to sell it to those they need to vote for them but are not going to benefit.
That is Fox News' job. The old fashioned media is doing a pretty good job of helping out by being distracted by tweets etc and not digging into the consequences of what policy has been over the past 40 years. Both Republicans and Democrats are to blame for the growing inequality.
6
Trenchant and exceptionally well written, as always ("Paul Ryan 2010 was basically Newt Gingrich 1995 with a lower BMI, yet he got praised endlessly as an innovative thinker." Love it!)
Nobody lays out these issues better or in a more common sense way than PK.
18
When America's politicians need new ideas for policy, they go where America's policy ideas have come from for decades. When Congress or the Executive Branch needs new ideas, they go to the lobbyists - and they get paid for listening. In fact, many members of Congress don't even pretend to listen unless they get paid for it - call it the Mulvaney Rule. This is what kids learn is called 'pay to play', or in this case 'pay to legislate'. We have the best policy ideas money can buy. It fits right in with the current political philosophy, which is to get while the getting is good. Trump exemplifies this idea - Republicans don't even pretend to try to represent "the people" - they're all for the very wealthy 0.1% and major corporation "persons'. If the rest of us get some incidental benefit from their policy ideas, why that just make for better campaign ads, but its not really necessary. Adequately gerrymandered, a member of Congress need only respond to those who pay to see him. I'd like to see Mulvaney's office visitor logs, just how many 'ordinary constituents who show up at the office' actually got any face-time with Mick at all... Democrats aren't any better really, but I'd like to see a comparison of how many Democratic Reps. are holding town halls compared to how many Republicans are holding them. Guess I'd better find a wheelbarrow of money if I want my policy ideas considered.
4
You recognize that the GOP listens only to its donor base (lobbyists wrote the GOP tax bill), but then you make a false equivalence. Is that really what you believe?
We're in trouble if we adopt a cynicism that tells us there's nothing we can do about our government. There are good candidates, and a party that represents ordinary Americans. It's the same party that brought us Social Security, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act.
5
Sandra, thanks for your response. I don't know that it is a 'false comparison' -- too many politicians, Democrats and Republicans, focus mostly on the money. Our system forces them into it. I feel that even if we had total public financing of all campaigns, with strict caps on spending, Republicans would still favor corporate and wealthy interests over those of more ordinary people. Their actions over the last 40 years or more prove it. Even 'lame duck' and 'retiring' Republicans try to go out with a big false-promises giveaway to the wealthy and big corporations (Paul Ryan, I'm looking at you!). Many Democratic politicians favor public election financing (Ro Khanna, my district Rep, has an interesting plan) - few Republicans want to do anything other than expand Citizen's United and open up unlimited floodgates of money. I'm OK with getting unions, interest groups, corporations, and wealthy individuals out of election finance entirely. Right now our government is incentivized to sell itself to the highest bidders - call it the Mulvaney Rule -- it controls the Congress, many state legislatures, and many other elective offices. Trump admitted 'playing the game' when he was a "business mogul" (in his dreams...!) and the Koch's, Steyers, and Soros certainly play just as well. Cut them all off, and run on ideas and policy instead of payoffs and donor's special favors. That's not my cynicism, that's my idealism poking through. My cynicism is just watching our current reality.
Here's an old idea we don't use. Congress has no need to borrow money to finance it's budget! It's in the Constitution, which gives the federal government a monopoly over money and the power to tax. So stop borrowing already. What really happens when Congress spends is that it creates now money to cover the bill. Said new money sent directly into the supplier's commercial bank account. Marvelously simple and efficient. No borrowing required. Problem is this immense fiscal power of Congress is pretty much ignored. Which is really why we don't have universal health care, modern infrastructure, or a full employment job guarantee. It's just finance.
3
Absolutely! I'm not advocating borrowing however here is a little scenario: the Dems or whoever just need to make people understand that if they, lets say, own 300 acres of land with a bridge, roads, buildings, utilities, etc..Once and awhile they would need to rebuild or improve said items on their land and they either save $ from their income, increase their income or borrow to make the improvements (borrowing with good credit so they get a fair deal). So, with a Congress that bills people annually to get income for all of our land, bridges, buildings, power lines, etc...it seems pretty simple. Save the money, get more income or borrow.
I'm not even including taking care of the people who live on or pass through the said 300 acres. Is that too simplistic? I'm not an economist but Mr. Krugman is right, as always. This is not a NEW idea. It is just logic. "It's just finance."
1
How about starting with eliminating the electoral college and giving equal value to every vote across the country, instead of added value to votes in four states?
31
I confess to liking Krugman more than any other columnist in any paper- but this article is just clueless. It's 2018. We've explored the four corners of the universe. We've invented most of the things people need.We could use a World's Fair, international and regional scientific and cultural exchanges to envision a future 10,20, 50 years out. We live a fractured world where the focus on what divides us, not what unites us. I fail to understand why liberals and Dems don't play to their strength which is that a diversity of ideas (scientific, economic, cultural, humanistic) across a diversity of locations (regional, national, and international) is what creates an interesting
and better world. The Rs are about the money. The Ds should be about the ideas. Saying there are no ideas just admits that all that matters is money and power.
3
Except that Krugman isn't saying that there are no ideas, he's saying that the Democrats already HAVE all the good ideas, and that as a consequence, it's absurd to ask them to come up with new ones and if not blaming them for not having new ones, as many pundits did during the last elections.
As to Democrats not playing "to their strength": what makes you believe something like that? Any concrete example?
11
I don't think Krugman is saying "there are no ideas". He is saying that there are already ideas, in certain critical areas, that work, modified where needed, In discussing issues there is
a tendency to reject what is being done already in search of a new approach or concept, without analyzing what works and what does not work, what remedies can be introduced to make them function better. Since most things are not managed as they should, why not try to make them work properly before rejecting them outright?
4
I'm a Democrat. I support most of the things Krugman supports.
But, other than addressing global warming (which is fixing a serious problem, not a vision for the possible) , I didn't see any talk in the 2016 campaign of what the future holds beyond the next four years. Why not have a World's Fair? Not a commercial venture were the aim is to bring in money - but a brainstorming venture to think about the globe in 50 years.
If I go into most any venue (a restaurant, a mall, etc) and ask people to name a city in England besides London (without looking at the Internet), most people couldn't do it. Why aren't Dems engaging the world.
If I turn on CSpan on a weekend, there are book fairs in Miami, Nashville, and Tennessee. Just once, I'd like to see a national Democratic critic show that he/she had read a Southern or midwestern writer like Flannery O'Connor or Eudora Welty. That's a way to engage conservative communities.
“Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best.”
Yes, there are wonderful things we could do if we had a large enough majority of citizens who will vote for those things.
Which is the whole problem. For decades we haven't been about to create such a majority.
The new ideas that are wanted are ideas on how we can build the political power and will and consensus that will enable us to accomplish the things that want doing; or, ideas on what are the best things that are actually possible to do, and how we can at least accomplish THEM.
2
You're right - many pundits are bored by policy (including some of your colleagues). But I don't think generating new ideas is going to solve that boredom. New ideas would require those pundits to understand new policy proposals and, as you point out, they don't want to understand the ones that exist now. Those pundits have exactly what they want right at this very moment - a situation that allows them to talk about twitter rampages, "Stormy," palace intrigue, and Mitt Romney's dog on the roof of a car.
5
Here is one "new idea." Make sure every vote counts by having backup paper ballots for all elections. Who could object to that?
19
Ha! Only the ones who are bound to lose if every vote is counted correctly, and if every citizen who wants to vote can actually do so.
Good ideas, even old ones, have a better chance of success if they are packaged up with shiny new labels. People like catchy, new terms.
This is why "Medicare for all" caught on, but anyone pushing "universal healthcare" sounds like an old stick in the mud.
We need catchy names for old ideas, and new/better ways to market those new names.
8
Unfortunately, even "good" ideas may still need to be "repackaged" for a large part of the current electorate. What else can a politician do when so many voters say they oppose Obamacare, but favor the Affordable Care Act?
13
Here is a really old idea that many are working to seem new...
It will be fascinating to see the debate between the 'new-fangled' UBI - universal basic income - which offers a subsistence stipends to all qualifying citizens and is derived from the tax payments of all citizens....
VERSUS
Social credit theory as defined by C.H. Douglas.
Social credit theory stipends are given UNIVERSALLY, no qualifications and the disbursed sums are simply printed by the government. The ability to create and destroy money is taken from private banks and placed solely in the government's hands.
Political will, voter registration and voter turnout!
Simple isn't always easy. But in this case, it is necessary. We must do the simple, hard thing.
8
The one "new/old" idea I'd like to see is for politicians to stop blathering on about stuff that will never happen, like all laid off and low wage workers become highly trained highly flexible and technologically savvy, and instead recognize that, for better or worse, our modern globalized economy is turning out millions of low wage, low benefit jobs, and that as a result, we should simply pay the people who do those jobs enough money to live on, and give them health insurance.
23
Re: "the big Sneer is already underway. Name a potential Democratic candidate..........." I know the Good Professor is talking about how the pundits react to democratic candidates. But the press and media coverage is rigged. The republicans don't have any new or good ideas but they are good at fake news and smear. Most journalists do little original reporting and seem to be happy to just repeat what others are saying.
In regard to Hillary, the republicans were worried sick about whitewater, Bengazhi , email gate, etc. and used the press to keep the publicity going. But if crimes were committed, why was nobody indicted? Hillary has been under almost continuous investigation for 20-30 years but never indicted for anything. In the last election many democrats bought into the Hillary smear.
For over a hundred years, the southern political playbook (whether under the old southern democrats or the more recent republicans) has been to make life hard for the weak (i.e. poor and those with dark skins) and to help the wealthy and well connected. Many southern voters don't like people with dark skins or the poor so government can throw them a bone by cutting benefits for the most vulnerable. Meanwhile the powers-that-be stay in office. Remember the republicans currently hold the House, Senate, Presidency, and about 2/3 of state legislatures. When you have a good system going, why tinker with it?
11
I'd add: the problem with Bernie Sanders wasn't that he had old ideas or the same ideas since 1950; the problem was that he had the same ideas for fifty years and hadn't gotten past the slogan stage.
As Dr. Krugman points out, there's several types of universal health care in practice, but Sanders never clued us in to which one he was thinking of. He never got past a slogan. When the Wall Street Journal calculated the cost of his single payer idea at $18T dollars, he had nothing to say beyond, literally, "not THAT much", because he hadn't done his homework on the issue he picked as his signature issue decades ago. Bottom line, even people who doubted the WSJ thought that Sanders either didn't have a grasp of his subject, or did and was hiding the ball. Momentum for single payer is lost for another generation.
The real problem with ideas aren't that they are old; it's that they are dumb or half baked.
11
The ideas don’t need to be new, but they do need serious ‘rebranding.’ The R’s are quite good at it. The D’s cant figure it out at all. Think of the happy sounding words ‘job creators’ to replace ‘the rich/the boss’, or the bad sounding words like ‘class warfare’ to scare people into liking the reality of sever ‘income inequality’
2
Yes, and we don't need any new ideas from Apple, either. Apple may need those ideas, but we don't!
1
Paul Krugman’s thought about ending the media demand for politicians to come up with new ideas is logical, but there are some problems.
If voters are familiar with an old idea which has never been implemented fully or has been tossed aside in favor of a really bad idea which is new, they tend to assume that the rejected old idea must have been worse than its replacement.
That mistaken assumption will be encouraged by the politicians who proposed the replacement idea, rather than being blamed for having done something dumb.
This means that politicians and voters who see through the deception and want to get rid of the bad replacement idea (which now is new) must propose going back to the better idea, which now is old.
Common sense is more complicated than it appears at first blush.
Maybe we should stop talking about ideas altogether.
Politicians should just say, “Let’s do this.”
1
"Paul Ryan 2010 was basically Newt Gingrich 1995 with a lower BMI, yet he got praised endlessly as an innovative thinker."
Love that.
I believe that there could be some true new innovation but what he said about what other First World countries do to fund health care is 100% on target.
But what if the leaders do not aspire to lead a first world country. Maybe they are salivating over the privileges of the third world dictators. We've heard that from Mr. Trump himself.
Oh, America, you are in terrible trouble.
7
Yes, I loved that line also. A 'sick burn' as the kids today call it.
Once again a potentially great column is marred by ignoring reality.
We have an election system financed by the 1%. This is NOT an open field for the exchange of ideas.
If you want democracy back you have to publicly finance it. Until then donors call the shots. Then we can reclaim both our democracy and our economy!
Pretty simple, huh?
8
If ideas proposed have been reasonably considered but not proven empirically, as most happen to be, there is a high likelihood that they will not provide good enough results without unexpected consequences. Politicians work very hard to achieve policies and legislative acts which actualize ideas, and after doing so consider the result as partial or whole solutions. What they do not do is carefully review and evaluate these to determine whether they work as hoped and did not produce new problems. Doing so in an unprejudiced way is contrary to how policies and legislation are made. It also means that the good and the bad do not usually affect subsequent legislation except in ways biased by interest groups.
More to the point, if you look at some basic economic parameters ... comparing outcomes under Dem vs GOP tenures, you'll find that the economy does far better under the Dems.
For instance, going back to 1929, average annual growth in real GDP per capita under the Dems far exceeds that of the GOP (see BEA 7.1) ... and that takes out the outlier high growth FDR war years 1941 -1944. Same can be observed for total private sector employment in the post WWII era, Ike through Obama (see BLS CES0500000001). By the way, economic recessions seem to like the GOP, as almost 90% of recessionary months Ike though Obama were accumulated under GOP tenures.
But, is this ever acknowledged .. let alone credited?
8
Exactly. Or as Harry Truman said it, "If you want to live like a Republican, vote Democrat."
Let's get real. Uniquely in the US, both GOP/DEMS must vie for campaign financing from the insurance/drug industries. We’re the only modern nation without true universal health care. Please pick it up from there, PK.
Britain started its h/c 1948. In may countries, the grandparents of today’s youth had guaranteed h/c that the US still doesn’t provide all citizens. In 2018 US h/c is the world’s most expensive and most profitable, while leaving out millions.
It’s off the table in our politics to “improve’ ACA to reach affordability common abroad. Profit is priority over our health.
What candidates are really pushing public option or Medicare for All? The only one brave enough –Sanders---was criticized & insulted by Krugman, the Conscience of a Liberal. Sanders got funding from citizens, not corporations.
Our media never even discusses the h/c systems common around the world, thus ignores positive role models.
Since Krugman won a special economics Nobel, who better to concretely compare various world funding systems, and tell us which he favors and why? But he doesn’t. Same with tax rates.
So we get continual columns complaining about the big bad Repubs, and idealizing the wonderful Democrats as martyrs to the right wing.
Besides h/c, the US is rated behind many nations by the GINI Index of economic equality. We are also unique in turning our elections over to megadonor corporate funders. When will the liberal PK devote a column to this obvious cause/effect?
2
FYI: Hillary was campaigning on not only improving the ACA (something that Obama from the very beginning admitted would be necessary in the future, as the ACA only lay the foundation for universal HC, all while saving 40,000 additional lives a year, but still needed subsequent improvement bills), she also campaigned on adding a public option.
And in this very op-ed already, Krugman once again remembers that there are four equally interesting systems to obtain universal HC.
As to "turning our elections over to megadonor corporate funders": the main culprit here is the SC Citizens United ruling, a ruling VERY explicitly rejected not only by Obama, Hillary and all Democrats, who vowed to overturn it as soon as "we the people" give them the legal power to do so, but also constantly rejected by Krugman.
Time to update your info, maybe ... ?
While I partially agree with Paul, values and incentive motivate voters.
1
"There are actually 3 ways. You can have direct provision by a government health system, like Britain’s NHS; you can have a single-payer system of government health insurance, like Canada (or Medicare here); or you can use a combination of regulation, mandates, and subsidies to prod the private sector into covering everyone, like Switzerland."
There's a 4th option: the Belgian HC system.
In Belgium there are the so-called 3 "pillars" of society, which refer to political and religious movements: the Christian movement (conservative positions on social issues, center-leftist on economical issues), the Socialist (= center-left) movement, and the "Liberal" movement (leftist positions on social issues, conservative on economical issues).
Each movement has, to a certain extent, its own schools, hospitals, health insurance, and of course political party.
Citizens are free to choose each of those movements (or a fourth, neutral one), for each of those services (so you can simultaneously opt for a Christian school and a socialist health insurance system).
Health insurance is in part financed by the health insurance pools of each movement, and in part by the government, but the government mandates that insurance plans are almost the same everywhere (so the only reason to opt for a Christian rather than socialist plan is because you want to support the Christian movement).
Patients are entirely free to choose their doctor and hospital.
It's the 3rd best HC system in Europe.
2
This is the same premise as Michael Moore's documentary "Where to Invade Next." Many of the good ideas that are implemented elsewhere actually come from the United States. We really do have great ideas. We just need political will to implement them.
19
Yes, Marie,
The Marshall Plan was the basis for the European's health care systems. FDR also wanted healthcare, but had to settle for Social Security. I have a feeling that the Confederate Democrats (at the time) were responsible. Originally, SS did not cover farm or domestic work, mostly performed by minorities then and now..
Too often the new ideas coming from
Republicans involve tax cuts and less goverment spending. Let's remember that some goverment functions give us more bank for the buck then free market. So increase funding, i.e. paying more taxes is more efficient for the goverment service. Healthcare, education, environment, just to mention a few.
7
Honesty of a politician would be nice as would a true ability to work for solutions with any other politician instead of making it all partisan. As to the environment, Republicans just want to wring every last dollar out of a natural resource regardless of consequences. They abandoned any pretense of conservation well over 30 years ago and are proud of it.
2
I agree, as my favorite philosopher: Arthur Schopenhauer, put it. People don't care about what is good, they only care about what is new.
How do we go about re-invigorating the labor movement? in the past few weeks we have seen teacher's unions finally rise up and force governments to actually consider the needs of their residents rather than PACs.
The decline of unions is one more sin to be laid at the feet of Ronald Reagan, hypocrite that he was. President of the movie industry union for years, then turned his back on everything he'd preached when the big money boys came calling.
You cannot wage a one sided war and expect to an equitable outcome, but here we are with our government steadily eroding protections for its citizens through legislation, executive orders and judicial degrees.
This is the platform we need now and into 2020: Show the people how their jobs and their health care and their savings have been sold to the billionaires and their toadies in local, state and federal government.
We don't need new ideas; we need a new commitment to the people
10
From The True Cost Blog---Dates when countries started universal health care—partial list:
UK 1948 Single Payer
Switzerland 1994 Insurance Mandate
Japan 1938 Single Payer
Sweden 1955 Single Payer
Netherlands 1966 Two-Tier
Australia 1975 Two Tier
Netherlands 1966 Two-Tier
Germany 1941 Insurance Mandate
France 1974 Two-Tier
Norway 1912 Single Payer
Sweden 1955 Single Payer
Austria 1967 Insurance Mandate
Italy 1978 Single Payer
Canada 1966 Single Payer
Abroad, even conservative parties accept the principle of guaranteed, affordable health care. Unlike in the US, it’s acceptable that elected government has the right and duty to regulate the cost of insurance premiums and drugs.
Also the pharmaceutical ads that daily flood American TV are not allowed in EU countries. They actually think medicine should be a matter between doctor/patient and not marketed like any consumer product for profit.
Here, medical industry profits are funneled to the candidates we elect for office, who then ensure our laws favor those profits, and not the public. Our taxes prop up profits, under ACA.
This cause of why our h/c system is inferior to other democracies is blatantly obvious, yet never analyzed by our media columnists, and our 24/7 cable news TV pundits.
13
Meredith, Thank you for this comment. I fully agree with your comment. "yet [seldom] analyzed by our media columnists, and our 24/7 cable news TV pundits."
2
Were New Deal policies good ideas?
Common wisdom has it that WWII got America out of the Great Depression, not evil leftwing economics. FDR's alphabet-soup employment were but window-dressing or holding patterns until the god of capitalism boomed again, because capitalism, mankind's best friend, is a manic-depressive with severe mood swings in its DNA.
Surely, we should know the answers to these economic questions by now. Scandinavian socialism looks like a workable solution to humanity's survival quest; but many argue that they are special cases, not transplantable onto Southern shores.
I've always wondered why expert economists don't get together and hammer out the real stone tablets the world needs to survive and thrive. But then Harry Truman schooled me that if you lined up all the economists, they'd all point in different directions. Like Smith and Marx, Hayek and Keynes, Friedman and Galbraith, and Laffer and Krugman. How's a layman to choose the wise economic path? Thank god for FOX & Friends, Steve Mnuchin, and Larry Kudlow, eh?
2
Simple lies Trump complex truths is the basic headline explanation for political success.
1
As Lewis Black observed many years ago: “the Republicans are the Party of bad ideas. The Democrats are the Party of no ideas.”
It’s still true.
2
Also - Will Rogers when asked what party he belongs to: "Sir, I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat."
What sophistry. People demand new ideas out of Democrats because, in case you haven’t noticed, they don’t fight for universal healthcare, universal childcare, universal paid vacations, mandatory paid maternity leave, cannabis legalisation and the like.
These are the ‘new’ ideas people want (and they are all enormously popular, despite what pundits will tell you). If Democrats drew their lines in the sand and fought no one would complain that they sound stale or that they just want to oversee a continuation of the status quo (read: the candidacies of Kerry, Gore and Hillary).
3
Thanks to Obama and the Democrats, today 20 million more Americans have health insurance, which is saving 40,000 American lives a year. That's VERY close to universal HC.
It also includes the possibility for every state to switch to single payer.
Conclusion: the only way to believe that Democrats do NOT fight for universal HC, is to (1) don't care about the tremendous progress already made, and/or (2) ignore the fact that in a democracy, all real, radical change is step by step change.
Today, the GOP is doing everything possible to destroy the HC of a whopping 30 million Americans, installing a system that would cover 10 million LESS Americans than the pre-Obamacare system. THAT is the fight that those wanting universal HC are fighting today, you see?
You cannot just wish Republican would disappear. The only way to get to universal HC is through the legislative process, which means: through compromise.
Give up the fight because you don't like compromise, and you'll end up achieving nothing at all - or even worse, allowing the GOP to take over and to take us into the exact opposite direction.
As to Hillary: she campaigned on adding a public option. That's the very opposite of the "status quo", remember ... ?
3
"today 20 million more Americans have health insurance, which is saving 40,000 American lives a year."
Er, could you source that, please?
Your stats may well be correct; in fact, I want to use them if they can be verified.
Hello to the Low Countries.
Republicans have demonstrated quite well for a long time that they have no idea how to come up with “new and improved” anything or how to make the good old ideas work. They have been, continue to be, and probably always will be the party of No.
Oh, and the party of tax cuts for the rich, of course.
4
"Paul Ryan 2010 was basically Newt Gingrich 1995 with a lower BMI" - is just about the best and most hilariously apt description of our soon-to-be ex-Speaker. Dr, Krugman absolutely nails it - not just in that description, but in the message of this column.
The only new ideas we need are on how to get more Democrats to turn out and vote, so that they can regain the WH and Congress, so that all the "old" ideas can be implemented.
116
A similar knee slapper from Dana Milbank (Trump's Nobel Prize acceptance speech): "I want more immigrants from Norway and others who have the same merit-based complexion that Norwegians have".
32
Who elected these pundits and why do they get all this influence? While journalism (real journalism, not the whining mewlings of the WH press rooms and columnits) is supposed to be a check/balance on government thinking, instead we get those who think they know all and better. At best, pundits should be offering alternative interpretations of the facts, solutions to continuing problems or insight to intractable emotional positions. Instead we have people whose only expertise seems to be they can either write or broadcast well weighing in on technical issue they know nothing about. I supposed we shouldn't be surprised as this was part of the problem that lead to our present administration.
While it's flattering to readers for pundits to assume that voters decide on the basis of policy/good ideas, there's little evidence to support that myth.
Most of the evidence that explains the 2016 election points to racial resentment as the deciding factor. Public opinion shows majority support for policies that have been supported by Democrats for many years.
What Democrats need to work on is combating voter suppression by the GOP and turning out voters. But as far as increasing voter turnout goes, Trump may best the best card in the deck. If people thought they were relatively secure from bigoted oppression when Obama was in office, they probably know better now.
4
we desperately need a fresh approach to climate change , especially when this year's cminate rise is on uptick as per a new report in the Nature journal.
Surprise surprise! With Trump throwing both caution and our future , to the wind with his big coal oil push. As well as his absolute disregard towards the EPA, and what it stands for and legally must do to protect us from pollution.
Democrats need to start campaining on protecting the Enviroment, free speech, equitable taxes, animal rights , cannabis legalization and the right to have health care for all.
2
The point that Krugman is making here is that Democrats are ALREADY campaigning on all that you're mentioning here.
Even more, they already achieved a lot of steps in the direction of what you're saying here during the last 8 years.
All that voters need to accept now is that change takes time, and is always step by step change. And then go MASSIVELY voting, as poll after poll shows that a clear majority of the American people (and on many issues even a majority of GOP voters) actually agree with Democrats, and not with Republicans.
Today, being a patriot means:
1. to constantly fact-check the news.
2. to go voting.
3
While I generally agree with Dr. Krugman, I think he misses the point here. Yes, the Democratic party generally agrees on a set of platitudes. The "new idea" is simply doing something about them as opposed to sitting on the sidelines, saying they're too hard or waiting for a sufficiently strong primary challenger a la Bernie Sanders to force action.
Democrats may not need new ideas, but they desperately need new ways of marketing of their good ideas -- and they need to be prepared to aggressively and comprehensively defend their ideas if they are to have any chance of fighting the onslaught of "counterarguments" (ie, lies, deceit, misdirection) from the GOP propaganda playbook.
Democrats fail miserably at messaging, partly because of their party's aging politicians, who often seem unprepared, inarticulate and unassertive, and partly because they just haven't figured out how to effectively fight against the cohesive GOP brand.
It's profoundly sad because Democratic values ARE American values -- but no one is listening to the meek, compromising voices of our Democratic politicians. We need a fresh and tough approach to Democratic ideas that actually translates into a message that resonates with a majority of Americans.
I think Democrats would be wise to let Democrats like Joe Kennedy and Conor Lamb lead the party into the future.
11
An opportune time in history to set limits to the most powerful assignment in our Country; America appears to have reached a political ceiling where The Presidency can decide the outcome of our destiny and fate. With this in mind, the Republican Party can retrench on the basis that what is taking place is out of its hands. A sorrow crew, with few exceptions, we can not afford to do worse.
1
Dr. Krugman is absolutely correct, but it seems that getting politicians to address "any" important challenges is impossible.
Consider:
1) Most Americans want a universal health delivery system. Politicians simply cannot enact such a plan because the large players (doctors, insurance companies and big Pharma own them).
2) We have needed infrastructure investment for over 30 years now. This is yet another good idea that seems impossible to implement.
3) We need a better educational system. Why so difficult?
4) Reinstate Glass-Steagall.
I mean, there are a number of key problems that must be addressed, but it seems that Politicians are too busy answering to their rich benefactors rather than the vast majority of citizens in the U.S.
12
Excellent points, Professor Krugman, but I respectfully disagree as to the need for genuinely new ideas. Like most classic economists, I suspect you regard high consumer spending and increased business expansion as unquestioned social goods. These are embedded as classic values and postulates of liberal economics. But it is becoming increasingly clear that our shared physical space -- the environment -- is both limited and vulnerable in its capacity to absorb abuses generated by us humans as we pursue unimpeded economic "growth". We cannot ignore the destructive impact of consumer goods purchased then disposed of in an endless, profitable business cycle based on stimulating a demand often unrelated to enlarging the humanity of purchasers. Why punish the planet through new consumer toys that lose their charm and often isolate us from each other?
We urgently need new ideas and practices that will redefine value away from business production of consumer goods that expand extractive industries and exacerbate the externalized costs of consumer consumption. A family taking a long walk in a park does not increase GNP. But it may promote wholesome intimacy and improve the quality of social capital in a community.
Do you know of innovative economists redefining what "economic growth" means in this way? Why cater to the extractive industries and garbage managers to the detriment of ourselves and our vulnerable, beautiful, shared home, known by its cold descriptor, the "environment"?
13
Economists believe people should pay the FULL COST of their consumption which includes the environmental costs. The so-called "negative externalities" can be paid for by corrective taxes, direct regulations which are internalized by the businesses and passed on, in part, to consumers, social opprobrium of polluters, et.al. The fact that society caters to extractive industries and makes sure that the full cost of production and consumption is not paid for is not the fault of economists but of politicians and the general public.
3
Welcome voice, here. Many people who SHOULD DO SO do not want to think about the problems of sustainability.
2
The new book Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth is all about a growing movement for sustainable economics.
It's a new idea we desperately need, pace Dr. K.
1
Here’s an idea I’d really like to hear from our ruling class: stop wasting money on our bloated military and stop waging endless wars.
396
Unfortunately this isn't going to happen. Far too much money being made by keeping us in wars. We have decided not to heed the warnings for President Eisenhower when he warned us about creating a military industrial complex. Can't have this complex and make the money without the wars. To do that politicians continue to foment fear and they've done a great job. More profitable then building schools and taking care of infrastructure.
17
Well, we have money, resources, and a huge, advanced military, so the world calls on us when there's trouble, which there almost always is. Obama said his phone never stopped ringing with calls for help from foreign leaders. We not so secretly believe ourselves to be the world's policeman; it's a myth that should be nuked immediately.
3
endless wars that we can't win
3
Paul Krugman’s distinguished work in economics must surely highlight to him that complexity is always the hidden ghost in public planning. Of course we know that healthcare, the environment etc. are urgent issues where good ideas for solution abound. The issue is always assembling an overall plan that preserves the nation's economic health, is sensibly fair and can be explained to a wide portion of the public. The recent tax bill is a perfect example. There was some real argument for somewhat lower taxes on small to medium businesses. The actual bill will explode the deficit, do little for the average citizen and prevent spending on areas that really need it like infrastructure, education and training, science. A compromise would have been possible – as Obama recognized a couple of years before.
Details matter as PK surely understands. The real challenge is putting together a package that sees the big picture, proposes a sensible battle plan and sells this to a majority of voters. This is the “big idea” that will get the economy and society in general back on the track.
Dr. Krugman, I beg to differ on a key point. The reason that all these good ideas floating around progressive circles don't get implemented is because our democracy has become dysfunctional. Corrosive money, placing partisan power above representation, gerrymandering, and a divided electorate are some of the causes. And while these are not at all new, we have arrived at a point where, as President Obama put it, our democratic institutions are breaking down.
The one new idea we need is to repair democracy while also trying to enact better policies. The time to elect different people and expect better results is past. We need politicians who will acknowledge the elephant in the room: our system is broken and needs repair.
There are many groups advocating structural changes: Move To Amend is leading the charge to remove money from politics and constrain corporate rights. A Federal Accountability Amendment proposes to change the rules within Congress, eliminate gerrymandering, and empower citizens to act via referendum. Eric Holder and Obama are working hard on gerrymandering.
As voters, we need to ask our candidates to add repairing democracy to their platforms, right up there with gun safety, health care, infrastructure, and fair taxes.
20
People aren't hoping for someone with "new ideas" as much as they are wanting a leader with a "new approach", as in, someone who actually accomplishes something that will benefit the vast majority of us. Something most of us agree needs fixing. Almost certainly, as P.K. states here, it does not need to be something "new".
4
Before we wish for better national programs, The Foundation of our Country will need to be restored.
1
Since there is no science in either politics or economics any 'new ideas' are gender, color aka race, ethnicity, national origin, theology, law and history plus arithmetic. There are too many unknowns and variables to fashion the double-blind controls that provide repeatable and predictable results.
The purpose of elective office is winning enough votes to stay in power. While economics is meant as a guide to the allocation of natural resources by labor and reward among human beings. Neither politics nor economics are intended to be effective, fair, just or moral.
1
Often, “clever new ideas” create the false expectation that big problems are easy to solve. Then, when the expectations are not met, the public resents it and politicians often lie to appease them. This leads to a destructive cycle of mistrust. I’d like to think that more honesty on both sides — public expectations AND politicians’ promises — would do our republic some good.
There is one idea that should be driving out democracy. That is the idea that what ever we do should have the greatest benefit for the greatest number of people. Our government is "for the people' and "by the people" and it should start acting like it.
14
We have millions of Americans retiring in the next 20 years. Can't we just have efficient and effective government? That's all I want. I don't think this is a time for expensive new ideas. fyi I am a lifelong Democrat.
3
Spot on, Paul. Let's do things that we know how to do and keep the things that we know work.
Our problem is one party that is trying to undo and not do.
15
Mr. Krugman -- I agree with you -- our focus should be on good ideas, not new ones. However our society is one dominated by marketplace forces and -- over decades -- we have become conditioned, like trained animals in some TV commercial, to sit up and demand NEW, exciting, different ideas! But the key word here is NEW. NEW sells; old is, well, old. Passé. Out of touch. Out of date. Tired. As a society, we've not been taught to think; we've been taught to buy.
If we stopped selling ideas -- and most especially political ideas -- as if they were laundry detergent, we might make some room for the best ones to emerge. But while $$$ can be made selling them, the NEW, BOLD (and often specious) ideas will continue to hold sway.
7
Our Country is not for sale, or to be given away on the basis of good advertising.
When I read on NPR's site the other day that 1 in 6 adult Americans cannot read at a fourth grade level and that is the highest rate of illiteracy in the industrialized world, I wondered why we can't copy some of the European countries that have a much higher rate of adult literacy than the U.S. When the Oklahoma legislature hemmed and hawed over how to sell wine in grocery stores, I thought why don't they copy states that already sell wine in grocery stores. When I see countries that cover everybody with health care, I wonder why the U.S. can't copy successful countries. As Paul says, it makes no sense to spend years coming up with new ideas that don't work when others have already found success.
I guess it's easier for Republicans to run against Mrs. Clinton in 2018 than to think of either new or old ideas. Oh, and you still can't buy wine in grocery stores in Oklahoma.
20
Linda
Oklahoma
When I read on NPR's site the other day that 1 in 6 adult Americans cannot read at a fourth grade level and that is the highest rate of illiteracy in the industrialized world, I wondered why we can't copy some of the European countries that have a much higher rate of adult literacy than the U.S.
[ Wow, that is startling to me. Now to think this through. ]
Linda- we can't have literacy in the US. If we slash taxes to line the rich man's pocket, expenditures have to be cut to balance the state budget. We can't cut "protection" such as fire and police, but we can cut teachers, schools, libraries. And so we do. And we get what we pay for. So we either can pay more tax to fund education, or we cut education and live with the fall out.
Where politicians do need new ideas is in tactics. How do we get progressive nonvoters to vote? How do we get volunteers to get nonvoters to vote? How do we keep people motivated? How do we create a climate of urgency? How do we get inspiring leadership that doesn't just sound like more marketing?
8
And of course they need to know how to implement good ideas and to do so in a way that will stick. And also they need to get the attention of the electorate -- and that is the key. The Republican have been better able to use language and media savvy to sway the masses. "Workers of the world unite?" or "expropriate the expropriators?" Maybe not. Let's come up with words that resonate and help motivate people -- and maybe even educate them.
3
I appreciate Paul Krugman's sentiments and I share his suggestions about universal healthcare and protecting the environment. However, I do not share his optimism that the United States is capable of actually implementing any significant reforms in these areas until we reform something else first. And that something else is to pass legislation banning all political contributions and allocating public funding f all election campaigns. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans will ever allow their duopoly on governing to be threatened.
30
This popular notion that publicly funded elections is a viable solution has long been debunked by actual research. Publicly funded elections do not promote change or reduce corruption because it turns out they overwhelmingly favor the incumbents.
4
Our current system reelects in the neighborhood of 95% of incumbents. If that is not the very definition of overwhelmingly favoring the incumbents, what is?
The very fact that both parties are completely aghast at the very idea of publicly funded elections means it must be bad for them. Which obviously means it would be good for us.
"politicians don’t need clever new ideas to make the case that they could vastly improve most Americans’ lives"
I've developed a conviction that many politicians and all republicans do not care one whit for the improvements to most Americans' lives. Lining the pockets of the wealthy even more, and getting re-elected, seem to be the only motivators. I really try to look for evidence to the contrary, and come up with nothing every time. It's in the sub-text of anything I've read in the National Review.
Like this article says: if republicans really cared about the plight of most Americans (i.e. the 99%) there are examples all over the world of systems that work and, importantly, do not work. These ideas should be mined instead of the hand-wringing over the dearth of "new ideas". As long as the republicans hold the reins, I'm not holding my breath.
16
I'd say "the consent of the governed" got stymied along the way. If one, or a few, wants to orchestrate the meat and potatoes way things are done around here.... some new tools must be added to the box.
"Citizens United" became that foundational interruptive device that allowed the corporate personage to retool the political, social and economic constructs using devious methods external to the usual underpinnings of a working democracy.
Real citizens think their vote no longer counts... and they may be right. Poll returns show 85+% favorable bent for an line item, yet it goes the other way on the floors of the house and senate.
Glass-Steagall Act rescinded and replaced with mish mosh Dodd-Frank (All up for debate and deletion)... "Corporate Welfare" is still a thing and still expanding.... "Starve the Beast" is still a practiced creed.... from here on ... you fill in the blanks for this revolting development we find ourselves in!
We're in deep doo doo and it reeks. The keystones of this bad dream must be removed. We know what they are. Do we have the "cards" to play this out???
4
I really appreciate this column, Dr. Krugman.
This longing for unspecified "exciting" ideas from nonexistent charismatic liberal candidate is exactly what I hear from pundits, and also from my progressive friends. They dream about a Knight on a White Horse who would come, explain everything in few simple words, and gets everyone excited. All this while right wing propaganda would effectively ridicule this effort, effectively assassinate the character and portray the liberal candidate as a crook and fool.
The same day dreamers would then sit the elections out because the candidate was not good enough and a lesser evil just doesn't cut it.
They just can't comprehend that the major reason for FDR was Great Depression and the major reason for Obama was Iraq failure and financial meltdown. Want to advance liberal and progressive agenda? Vote!
10
Taking literally Professor Krugman's headline, he is right. Politicians win elections not because of their profound ideas, but because of their talent of rhetoric that they make appeal to the masses. This has always been the truth, from Robespierre to Trump. The only light at the end of the US political tunnel would be a new party, an ideological mixture of Liberals, Know-nothings, Libertarians, and Opponents of Political Correctness with all the similars attached to its coattails and dragged wallowing in its wake.
Politicians don't work in a vacuum. Everyday they're inundated with lobbyists, special interests, billionaires who use their money to push their self-serving agenda, merchants of greed, foreign agents, war mongers, media that cover politics with National Enquirer as their model. And that's in addition to a well-financed opposition that has one purpose: to obstruct and sabotage everything their donors and patrons are against.
Arguably there are no new ideas. There are good ideas already in place and the fight is either to fully implement them and make them better or defend them from an opposition or special interests intent on subverting them.
For example, we have Medicare. Expand it and we have Universal Healthcare. Add progressive taxation free of corporate subsidies and exemptions and the wealthy paying their fair share and Medicare for all is fully funded. These aren't new ideas. They're good ideas defeated or subverted by special interests that profit from problems instead of solutions.
As essential as politicians of good faith are voters who are informed and inoculated against disinformation, agent provocateurs, hot button media, political dirty-tricks as well as apathy and cynicism.
The fight isn't over good ideas. The fight is protecting good ideas from bad actors.
We don't need politicians with good ideas. We need politicians with good faith. And smart voters to elect them.
49
New ideas will either be complex and boring or simple and amenable to being made frightening. Lack of new ideas can be portrayed as more of the same old same old. So Republicans have a winning strategy no matter what the dems do.
Republican new ideas are simple, and they should be amenable to being made frightening. Cutting Medicare and Social Security should scare anyone who knows anyone who depends on these programs, because the alternative to them is being hit up for help by those who depended on the programs. Not acting on global warming should scare us all. Low taxes should be scary because they let problems (like drug addiction or crime) fester and grow and spread to areas that want to be safe; gated communities with patrols do not stop crime but merely move it to somewhere else. But Republicans are better at scaring people.
1
Both parties, but especially the GOP, believe in their souls that business works better than government, and that ideas for positive change come via the private sector.
This, of course, ignores the fact that government has often been the change-making innovator (Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, environmental policies, etc.) while the business sector these days has replaced innovation and risk with rewarding institutional shareholders and senior management with vested stock plans. What's been the biggest business innovation in the past 20 years? Facebook? Amazon? Google? What's been the biggest government innovation of the past 20 years? The Affordable Care Act, which provided health insurance for some 11 miilion citizens.
Ideas will flow again when the politicians begin listening to voters and not their corporate and special interest paymasters.
5
Thank you for this column: I too find the declaration that Democrats need new ideas to be frustrating, and that was before Republicans embraced coal and the Gilded Age as their new ideas.
What the pundits mean is, "The Republicans have ruled out those ideas, so try something else". Sorry, the Republicans don't have a veto power over ideas; they were good even if Mitch McConnell won't bring them to a vote. But the pundits won't call for a new Senate leader; they'll just send Democrats back to the drawing board for new ideas, not better ones.
2
Needed, much needed essay. I am grateful.
6
Please make sure that Ms Dowd reads this column.
7
Get the message across. That's what the Democrats have been lacking. On economics: This is Your Government and Your Future. All the Safety Net programs you enjoy come from the Democrats--social security, unemployment ins. food stamps, access to higher education, children's nutrition programs, and expanded access to healthcare including for women. All of this is under attack by the Republicans, and because the Democrat's message are often me-too republican on social issues in key districts, they don't get elected. Republicans get voters to vote against their own self interests, while Democrats have had trouble getting their voters to the polls-- and a radical minority rules.
Relying on slogans is dumb. Stronger together might as well be New Tide. A better deal is me-too on two fronts, it's recycled and implies the opposition has a good deal--it doesn't. Maybe they should just offer "cash back"; sounding like Madison Ave on phony slogans makes them sound phony.
The message should be: For the Common Good. Let the lady from Patagonia explain what that is. Throw in saving the planet with pictures of the actual planet, and real people with real lives finding jobs in a zero emissions economy--Lots of Jobs! Young people want to hear this--not lip service, but real commitment, and older people need to know, if they don't already. The Republicans are funded by the worst polluters on earth including the Russians.
Give us some new faces--Sally Yates, Comey, Parkland...
2
The fundamental reason that the right wing (the super wealthy) want to privatize everything is because they see all that tax money used to help the American people, and they think "Whoah! We want that money for ourselves we're the superior ones and we deserve it more than anyone else! Let's create phony schools, phony prisons(free labor), phony health insurance(pretending to offer health care), etc.. and tell everyone we're hard working white Christians and deserve it(when they're actually lazy grifters i.e. trump) "
After these rich grifters comes Paul Ryan, using the awful Ayn Rand and her pitifully cruel ideas as a driving force, is the worst. The right wing pundits and congresspeople who praised his ideas are the second worst.
The GOP is just a group of brain eating zombies, attacking the American people and destroying the country to cash in on the wealth of the nation. They're disgusting and I'm "mad as hell."
8
Preach it, Bro!
2
Great points, as usual, from Mr. Krugman. However, I think a call to "new ideas" refers to something really novel: a serious attitude towards implementation.
So Mr. Krugman is right that Hillary did not lose because ideas like sharing, fairness, and the like were antiquated. Kindness, for example, will never go "out of style." She lost because her connections to old power and old money made many suspect her sincerity in implementing meaningful change.
That's why Trump won. His ideas about selfishness, mysogyny, and lies are as old as lucifer, and his beliefs about, e.g., race relations are, regrettably, as old as our nation. He won because his followers DID BELIEVE Trump would really follow through on, for example, a border wall. The fact that he has not, except for the tax bill, could not matter less.
1
Many candidates seem to get "their ideas" from looking at polls, so it hard to say such candidates have any ideas besides getting themselves elected. Voters generally do not get excited about such candidates, and having several of them in a multi-way primary can mean they all lose to an "outsider".
If a candidate displays some originality or stubbornness, it may be seen as a signal that they did not just build a set of recycled and often inconsistent (or poorly coordinated) policy positions from polling results. Any idiot can read polls (one said 72% favored invading Iraq, for example) and follow along so they appear to be a strong future commander-in-chief.
Paul is right that it is not about original ideas, but original ideas may be a symptom of what many voters do want- a somewhat predictable, internally consistent philosophy that does not jump around with every poll or giant campaign contribution. Having some flexibility is also valued, but a lot of it can be toxic.
1
I think the new idea should be, why do we continue to accept the authority of an organization that is completely useless and unacceptable? To "protect" us? They diminish our wealth through taxes only to enrich themselves. Where are the benefits? Why would anyone continue to support failure?
61
I just have a few questions.
Exactly what organization are you talking about? In what way is it "useless" and "unacceptable"? Please begin by defining both terms. Who is this "us" and what do you mean by "protection"? Who exactly is being enriched by taxes? What sort of benefits do you mean and to whom do they/should they accrue? What failure exactly is being described and how does it work out in actual practice?
As I say, just a few questions. Otherwise, your post makes perfect sense.
9
Paul, you forgot the fourth basic value of the repubs - only hire totally incompetent people into the government, the better to destroy it from within. Nixon started that, and it has continued in every single Repub administration. now even the current administration has taken to its logical conclusion -every single person from the "president" on down is totally, utterly incompetent and bent on destroying the government. And people voted for this to happen. They don't care about "new" ideas. They don't want any "ideas" at all - that implies thinking about things. The trumpers just want to complain and destroy everything. They are getting their wish. Their next "idea" will be to wonder why they are still in bad shape once their medical care is non-existant, and they are being polluted to death.
1
It's about the "L"s, which is apparently current slang for "losses", derived I assume from the Wins/Losses stats in the sports section.
What I mean is the almost universal perception that "America is Losing" power, influence, wealth, and therefore can no longer afford to build a good life for its citizens. If you asked people what the change in America's per-person real-dollar wealth and income was over the past 40 years, how many would answer correctly that it has roughly doubled? Or that violent crime has dropped by half?
How has this mass hallucination of overall loss happened?
If people could wake from this nightmare, they would see that we have all the resources we need to do the work that needs doing. All that's required is the will to put those resources to work instead of hiding them in the Cayman Islands.
2
Centuries after human beings invented politics (as usual), is anything really new under the sun?
Power, arrogance, greed and the influence of money, the corruption that comes with hubris -- so what else is new?
The hard part seems to be in caring for others, caring for the planet (and now beyond the planet). All the way down the line.
Doug Giebel, Big Sandy, Montana
1
Why exactly do we need politicians? Because it's representative, not direct democracy.
Getting a government is like getting a job, the worker/citizen and the employer/society don't really at this point need a meddlesome third party that generally adds nothing to the labor market mechanisms available than their outstretch palms.
But that's the way it works until suddenly it doesn't.
We don't need no stinking new ideas; what we gotta do is enforce what we know works. Which requires a functional Congress. You know, the kind that actually works.
8
Trump and republicans are liars and hypocrites, and dont care about the poor, sick and elderly. They opposed obama’s stimulus during the recession, citing increased deficits-and just increased the deficit by 1 trillion. They said they would not raise taxes, and would cut taxes, and raised our taxes by limiting the state tax deduction and pushing people from lower to higher income brackets. They are trying to hide trumps collusion with putin to remain in power. Putin put them in power, so they are colluding with him, an act of high treason while waving the flag. No foreign power should be allowed to influence our elections. Abortion rights is politics- they dont care about morality and are supporting the most inmoral and corrupt politician anyone can remember-donald trump. The tax bill is a mass transfer of public wealth to republican donors. They dont care about their kids and grandkids either-who will foot their bill
4
Your supposition “Politicians Don’t Need New Ideas” is wrong!
Politicians and all Americans need the following new idea that must be implemented. Without it America is destined to follow Einstein’s theory of insanity – keep doing the same thing over-and-over again and expect a different outcome!
We must find a way to hold self-interested and self-enriching Politicians and their staffers, past and present, from both parties, personally liable, responsible and accountable for the lies they have told US, their gross mismanagement of our county, our $21T and growing national debt (108% of GDP), and approximately 80T in future, unfunded liabilities jeopardizing our economic and national security, while benefiting themselves, their party, and special interest donors.
http://www.usdebtforum.com
2
This is one of the best sentences ever written:
"Paul Ryan 2010 was basically Newt Gingrich 1995 with a lower BMI, yet he got praised endlessly as an innovative thinker."
Keep 'em coming, Paul! We need you now more than ever.
8
Right on.
Here's another golden oldie courtesy of Joe Biden re (now back in the new$ Rudy Guilliani). "Every statement he makes has a noun a verb and 9/11 in it."
The new ideas concern is really just from the pundit class - the likes of Tom Friedman. But this doesn't seem to be what motivates most voters. Most people are looking for a candidate with an attractive personality, looks or appealing manners. (Why Trump appeals to some is beyond me, but nonetheless he has his appeal. ).
1
Give that much of the Republican base seems to possess a short attention span, little knowledge of history, and a laziness/inability to determine facts and understand what they mean, the solution is simple:
Just take the good "old" ideas and tell them that they are "new". If anyone questions it, tell them that their criticism is just "fake news".
2
It isn’t about ideas, it is about how you communicate them. Most Democratic politicians are simply boring.Talking about “my work training program” is not going to make it. The linguist George Lakoff should be required reading.If you don’t get the general public’s attention, you aren’t going to get elected.
1
Why the demand for new ideas? It’s simple, Paul. ‘New’ ideas are a distraction and provide cover. The well-known effective ‘old’ ideas involve government action such as regulation, taxation, and engaging for the common good. None of these cater to the corporate mantra of “less regulation, lower taxes, fewer benefits”. And who controls government?
Well it’s corporations when the Dems are in control (what’s good for GM (Google?) is good for the country) and a few wealthy weirdos when the GOP is in charge (what’s good for my re-election (the Mercers?) is good for the country).
Voters are becoming restive.
2
Why do all Democrat Party candidates look tired and unexciting? Because they are, that's why. And the ones who actually fooled the country and got themselves elected - Obama, He-Clinton, were terrible. The country refuses to step twice (thrice now - count Jimmy in as well) on the same rake. The Democrat Party is just a liberal european-style party. Those of us who had been to Europe, have seen first-stand the misery of its populous and the lack of future and initiative in its kids. We do not want it here.
I am a Canadian and have no say in where America goes but I believe the electorate tells the politicians where to go not politicians, corporations or economists.
Firstly it is time for truth and we need new ideas because growing the economy means global catastrophe for our civilization.
Firstly we must ask whether we want our species to survive and can we live with less quantity and more quality.
The Greeks gave us King Midas, the Jews gave us Sodom and Gomorrah and history gave us the ruins of great cities in North Africa where water and arable land were depleted.
One hundred years ago Mark Twain's Mysterious Stranger told us there is nothing so good that someone doesn't suffer and nothing so bad that someone doesn't benefit. It is time for America to put down the Adventures of Tom Sawyer and read the Mysterious Stranger.
2
As far as I can tell, exploiting people's fears works better than ideas, old or new.
2
Republicans need 1 new idea: the idea that democracy is based on the government responding to the public's interest. Disempowering the public by convincing them that the government is their enemy is not democracy. It's a con game.
Democrats need a different idea: that leadership is about vision and advocacy. It is not about "triangulating" between the lies told by Republicans who want to subvert democracy, the least compromise your supporters will swallow, and the most your donors will allow.
3
Paul Krugman is my favorite liberal columnist but, more importantly, he's my favorite realist. If we continue to fail to get right what's on our plate now, why give the elected parasites the chance to further ignore the present by trying to come up an alternate problem set?
2
We are now dealing with a systematic conversion of our government to a one-party corporate fascist state. The Two Party system has been undermined by aggressive voter suppression through Republican state legislatures and highly coordinated gerrymandering paid for by Citizens United dark corporate money and executed by people like Karl Rove.
The 2016 election was a fraud by any measure so we need to be talking about how to recover our democracy first and foremost. Those are the ideas that are most needed here and now.
2
Thank you Paul Krugman. Well said. Democrats and Republicans are judged by very different standards.
1
Conservatives love being regarded as strict constructionists. It's largely delusional but polls well. Why don't progressives take a page out of the constitution-loving strategy playbook by routinely prefacing policy debate with the Preamble's "Promote the General Welfare"!
4
Dr K - the idea that Democrats need new ideas is simply because their old ideas haven't been working. Republican ideas, flimsy as they are, have been working fairly well. That's all that's going on.
And a part of that, at least, is poor marketing. Republicans are simply better at it these days. Scaring people is a very effective strategy - rapists are invading our country, the government can't do anything right so don't let it try to run a national health system, give an inch on gun control and they will take everyone's guns away, lazy people ("those people", hint, hint) are taking it easy on your tax dollars, and those liberals are scheming in the biggest hoax ever, climate change. It works.
2
What Republican ideas are working well? Deregulation led to the 2008 financial crisis. Lower taxes and the war on unions has led to runaway inequality and the death of the middle class. Disdain for the environment is driving global warming. Not least of all, the Republicans hate of anyone that doesn't look or believe like them is causing the greatest schism in American society since the civil war. No, sorry their ideas have not been "working fairly well".
3
Good comment, Fletcher, but you might want to begin a comment like this with a heading: Sarcasm Alert. Sarcasm Alert.
A politician with good ideas that can be enforced or enacted. Only to be undone by someone like dear leader. We need good ideas that can last.
2
The question to ask is why people are so much more inclined to believe sneering pundits rather than practical-minded pundits?
1
Actually, we don't really get a chance to try new ideas in this country, because every time the Republicans get in office, it takes the Democrats years to clean up the mess done by the tax-cutting, warmongering, social safety net slashing, gun-obsessed, bigoted, obstructionist Republicans.
At this point, "new" ideas for this country would be getting back to democracy, fair play, human decency, and taking care of the planet and each other.
4
Our politicians do not use the knowledge accumulated outside of the political arena which have transformed human life over the last few centuries. They do not treat ideas which seem good to them as hypotheticals which require empirical evidence to trust, they struggle to achieve agreement over policies, nearly all untested, and then conclude that their work is done. The result are some good things and a lot of unsatisfactory things, none of which receive any unbiased scrutiny to evaluate how well they achieve what was expected and what unexpected consequences were produced. Until we find a better way to manage policy formation and implementation, new ideas will tend to produce like results as those already tried.
1
I don't care about old ideas or new ideas, I want someone who will tenaciously advocate for good ideas that solve problems.
But advocating for ideas that solve problems first means that you understand the problem. Does anyone who listened to, or read about, the Senate hearings into Facebook really believe the Democratic senators really understand the challenges that Facebook and Google present? Does anyone who listens to Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi really believe they care about workers and the challenge presented by concentration of financial power in the United States?
57
Do you think that Trump or Ryan or McConnell care? You leave the impression that only democrats don't care. I don't believe that the republicans care either. They also don't understand Facebook or Google or any of the Internet. They do, however, seem to like monopolies.
9
Concentration of financial power in the hands of a few has been the province of a single party for decades. Who is behind the recent attempts to dismantle consumer protections, all to them ultimate benefit of the wealthy. Who passed tax breaks weighted mega-heavily towards the wealthy? Who is always on the side of the 1% . . . aka the concentration of financial power in the US?
The answer may amaze you. And it's not Pelosi and Schumer.
32
Does anyone who listens to Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell really believe *they* care more about the workers and the challenge presented by the concentrations of wealth and power in the United States? Does anyone who reviews the distribution of the "tax reform" championed by Trump and Republicans really believe that they care a whit for the workers and middle class? Why then is 80+% of the benefits going to the 1%? Neither Republicans nor Democrats can do more than pretend to understand the impact of Facebook and other technology, but that won't prevent them from doing what they think will benefit themselves and their donors the most. Republicans certainly cannot pretend to be in favor of consumer rights and individual privacy while they dismantle the Consumer Financial Protection Agency and re-approve and expand the NSA's surveillance and repressive and biased enforcement of immigration laws (in the name of "fighting terrorism", and "protecting jobs" of course). Trump's continuing attacks on the Justice Department, the Congressional Republicans whitewash sham "investigation" of Russia's interference and Trump's campaigns possible collusion shows just how much they care about protecting their power, and how little they care for the freedom and future of the United State's democracy.
12
New ideas are sometimes just old ideas passed on to a new generation. But is very important to renew our old ideas, especially when our ideas are really ideals. Mr. Krugman in particular, has been an important contributor in this vein.
1
Normally I think Dr. Krigman's columns are spot on. This not so much.
I get the basic point and agree with it - if what I get is correct. That is .. we don't need to reinvent the wheel every time we have to roll wagon out of ditch. And certainly new things often rely on legacy scaffolding to evolve.
So for example yes I agree the questions on Universal Health Care Coverage have been mostly asked and answered but even there the implementation faces legacy and requires considerable innovation in transition.
What we need is a conceptual visions against modern problems and opportunities (not to hard to conjure up from today's empirical reality somewhere - or if lacking a million academic discussions).
Then we need commitment against the visions.
The we need INNOVATION to sell and implement.
The GOP has fantasy visions .. D- on that score vis-a-vis reality and morality. But they excel on commitment and the selling. And sometimes even getting their junk implemented!
The Dems have mostly good visions ... need to be more innovative... BUT NEED MORE SUPPORT TO SPUR THEIR INNOVATION. Without our granting them power and electoral motivation they have only the ability to take a first step. Not enough!
3
As long as greedy special interests and billionaires continue to dominate American elections ideas will not be what drives election. These interests love people like Trump who can mobilized millions of voters not with ideas but being a well recognized celebrity accomplished at generating fear and loathing. As well as pandering to wealthy peoples mania to avoid taxes and get reckless unnecessary expensive tax cuts. As long as politicians mindlessly throw money at the Pentagon and demonize necessary social spending one can prepare for the regular daily deluge of misinformation and inflammatory partisanship.
4
I disagree, strongly.
One reason a Democrat needs fresh ideas is to finally break free of the legacies of F.D. Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson. The Dems ran on that for several generations, their pitch was, "We'll protect your benefits." Now, there are at least two generations who take those things for granted, don't know how they were achieved and can, actually, be convinced that benefits that go directly to them, or mom and dad, are part of bad "big government".
So many problems, so little time.
We need a citizen's national wealth program. This would involve citizen ownership of a portion of our natural resources (they all actually belong to all us, at least as custodians of earth's bounty) and ownership in the form of stock in public companies. Each citizen would have access to his or her fund at the age of 34 (the fund could NOT be used in advance for loans). With this money, citizens could start new businesses, pay off education debts, pay down on a house, etc.
Low wages: we need a program to ensure that all workers earn at least 150% of the poverty level in their region. This could be done with a supplementary payment, but modeled with great care to avoid enriching employers.
America's racial divide screams out for a comprehensive effort at solutions. First step: national reconciliation commissions as in South Africa.
All well prepared students should have access to the very best colleges. Encourage all schools to allocate 30% of admissions by lottery.
Lots more...
3
Dough. Wishful thinking is hardly "new idea".
To get enacted what was on Hillary's platform, however modest but nevertheless important it was, she needed Congress with at least 60 Senators. Make it 63 to account for defections.
You have no idea how tough that would be to get. And you have no idea how easy it would be to demagogue.
3
Agreed. In general we need to 'regulate' inequality to continue as a democracy. An important aspect of our current situation with respect o inequality is wealth inequality. But, in 'regulating' inequality, we must recognize its limits. Since individual expertise is an important part of individual development, we will naturally have a certain amount of inequality.
@Ron Bartlett thanks for your comment. I see great potential difficulties and also potential harm in the efforts of government, but the idea of guaranteeing a livable wage is something that must be addressed because one of the great challenges of the next 50 years is coming up with a new definition of work and how it is rewarded. What do we do if 40 to 50% of existing jobs disappear? That's the challenge.
The incessant clamor for "new" ideas comes from our consumer society, born of the industrial revolution, where we learn from birth to worship the new. The most fiercely competitive advertising, inevitably revolving around ever more hyperbolic claims of novelty, is for just those types of products, like laundry detergents, where actual differences are the slightest.
2
All the problems Prof. Krugman mentions that beg simple extant solutions are a function of the distortions created by Citizens United and the Electoral College.
We can't deal effectively with national issues that have economics at their core until we negate their outsized influence.
7
I’d like to differ with Prof. Krugman who claims politicians do not need new ideas. In fact, I’d assert the very opposite: For a politician or a party, it is important to demonstrate a stable vision for the country that is affordable and yet, always dynamic. In a fast changing world such as ours, a vision like that presupposes the necessity of accommodation of new ideas that need to be tabled, discussed, debated and argued. Otherwise, nothing ever can be adopted.
For example, think of the state of the economy 20 years from now with the Chinese defining it mostly in their terms. Couple that picture with a likely view of a manufacturing, transportation, service, agro-industry, medicine etc. almost totally delivered and managed by robots. What does full employment mean in such a scenario? How do we deal with redundant labor force that would be generated? Would the gap between the 1% and the rest increase, decrease, or likely to stay the same? How do we, as a nation, enter into that realm? If we don’t begin this discussion right now, when do we start talking about it?
It doesn’t make sense to be unprepared. I want our politicians to be visionaries; I want to see a JFK in each one of them irrespective of the party one is from. I should be able to see what ought to be our mandate in Syria, and its rationale. marginal at best.
2
Here is an issue where no one, especially Prof Krugman, has offered new ideas: what to do about housing. Prof Krugman and others blame "nimbys" for stopping high rise housing in places like San Francisco, but if more high-rises were the solution, affordable housing would not be a problem in Manhattan, right?
The problem as I (retired architect/city planner) see it is that the private sector, whether restricted by zoning or not, will charge whatever the marginal cost is for the next unit of housing built, so that new housing will always be at the highest rents. This will never solve the problem for low and middle income households. Simplistic solutions like abrogating local zoning, as proposed (and rejected) by the CA legislature, will only make developers richer without helping those in need.
Better ideas are needed, and probably those ideas will involve some sort of governmental intervention that has not been tried before.
4
Dr. Krugman is exactly right in this piece. There are good ideas proven to work, but politicians either haven't tried them or have turned away from them in favor of ideas that don't work but provide really great benefits and advantages to rich special interests. Some of the good ideas were even proposed by conservatives. Milton Friedman, for example, proposed the idea of a guaranteed minimum income as an alternative to various need-based anti-poverty programs such as food stamps and subsidized housing. A household with the confidence that they will not be destitute if they try something risky might be more willing to invest in some training in a trade to make a better living, for example. Financial stability solves a huge number of social problems. But the idiots of the GOP want people to be financially insecure, desperate, and even ground down into the dust by benefit cuts so they'll work at miserable jobs for miserable wages while rich people get the lion's share of economic growth and profits. They want that bad old idea of medieval feudalism, and the exalted Lord and Lady status they're buying until the torches and pitchforks come for them.
5
Democrats have many great ideas for infrastructure, education, healthcare and job training. However, they are unwilling to honestly talk about tax increases to fund the great ideas. I suspect that the Dems unwillingness to talk about revenue is that they are as tied to the donor class as the Republicans. Thus, we have a massive tax break for the donor class, with a massive deficit into the next decade. Ideas are wonderful but if there is an unwillingness to fund the ideas then we are left with slogans. We are left with Make America Great until we are willing to make the 1% pay their fair share for the benefits that they receive.
15
Do you recall the Social Security, Obamacare ? The stuff of great ideas that were put into reality. Those great ideas are the stuff that Republicans are working to eliminate since FDR's days.
2
In the US, politicians criticize one another to gain popularity and win elections! The incumbent is on the wrong track and if you elect me, then I will correct the problems. The ever popular approach is I am not a Washington insider, so I will be different.
One major problem, IMHO, is that a politician gets elected but finds out that is s/he bucks the Republican party, they will be run out of town (called a RINO and more conservative opponents will hound them).
I agree with Krugman that we possess many excellent ideas but at the same time have to be open to new ideas that evolve with the world we live in.
Here is a good idea proposed by Senator Sanders and others: Medicare for all. It’s not rocket science as the saying goes.
11
Except that PK pointed to 2 other model that also work. One of them, Single Payer, seems to have become a mantra for some Sanders supporters.
Here's a better idea: affordable healthcare for all (via whatever method will get us there quickest).
1
I'm tired of campaigns and promises. I would like to hear someone clearly identify problems and their impact and clarify some pragmatic solutions and their impact. I'd also like to hear these things from someone with some honor, integrity, ethical standards, and respect for the nation's institutions and the rule of law. I would also like this person to be thoughtful, insightful, articulate, curious, analytical, and positive.
10
Would people be impressed and vote for an engineer-style candidate, or would they prefer one who runs on wild exaggerations, malarkey and bull?
3
Would the electorate even recognize an ideal candidate as such?
After the 2016 campaign,I really wonde about that.
1
So why the demand for new ideas?
Whether it is deliberate or not, the implicit assumption that new ideas are needed has the effect of confusing voters, by ignoring or obfuscating the basic issues. For example, the discussion of Obamacare's mandate usually makes it seem like a policy choice, distracting attention away from the reality that some kind of mandate is inherent in the basic nature of universal health insurance.
If voters understood the basic issues, a lot of politicians would be out of business.
8
Democrats have the solutions to our problems on healthcare and inequality, but it's tough to get the message through all the Trump-related noise. The Democratic leadership should have weekly press conferences to explain their policies so the media has something to cover beyond Trump.
For example, I barely saw the coverage that said:
1. About 4 million people have lost health insurance on Trump's watch. That is about 5,000 avoidable fatalities every year. Under Obama, 20 million gained coverage. What's the Democrat's plan?
2. The national debt increase forecast over the next decade has increased from $10.1 trillion prior to Trump's policies to $11.7 trillion now (current law) or $13.7 trillion (current policy). The latter is more likely, a 36% increase. Obama cut the deficit by more than half; recall FY 2009 was budgeted by Bush.
3. We gave tax breaks ("Tax expenditures") of $1.7 trillion in 2017. Just the top 1% alone got $300 billion (CBO "Tax Expenditures"). That's half the defense budget for scale. Eliminating those breaks would go a long way to covering people with healthcare or education.
4. Democrats historically have presided over faster employment growth (roughly 2x), faster GDP growth, higher stock market returns (The Economist "Timing is Everything), and better deficit reduction. Yet Republicans get credit for being better economic stewards, a terrible media failure. Democrats should be blasting this all over social media.
24
The Democratic party has been campaigning on finishing the agenda of 1964 since 1968. They only get elected when there are sufficiently bad Republicans to replace. Hence the need for new ideas.
1
What was wrong with the Democrats' agenda of 1964? Civil rights, ending poverty, improving public education, improving infrastructure, sounds like a darned good platform for anyone anytime to run on. It beats the Hades out of running on the usual GOP platform which has the effect expressed by that ersatz hymn sung in the church in Blazing Saddles, "...our town is turning to ****"
2
Extremely sensible. But about "What we need is an effective political majority willing to act on what we already know.": Isn't the Democratic Party a coalition of many interest groups that collectively are often unwilling to act on what we already know?
4
Yes, there are multiple interests that sometimes conflict. That's unlike the GOP, quite monolithic in wanting more, more, more for themselves and less for the rest of us.
2
Anyway, how is it possible to reverse climate change by relocating polluting industries to the third world? It doesn't make any sense. Maybe that's the Democrats problem: they've stopped making sense.
3
Amen. But a candidate for elective office does not just need good ideas. The candidate needs to be committed to the policy ideas he/she presents and exhibit willingness to work hard to implement them. Hillary Clinton did not appear to be truly invested in the policies that she presented.
As a NY senator, she proved exactly that. But she was shouted over by hysterical Republicans frivolously investigating her for decades but never finding anything substantial against her, and dismissed by jaded reporters who were more interested in sensational press (Trump!, emails!) than reporting on actual policy and platforms.
4
HOW ABOUT REDUCING INEQUALITY ?
Oops
That would conflict with the power structure of the Democratic Party :-(
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14
Neither party is willing to raise taxes on the rich and use the new revenue to reduce our national debt. Raising taxes on the rich and spending it on new social programs does not appeal to many voters.
For example, the recent tax law gave money to the wealthiest taxpayers and thereby increased the debt. We cannot reduce inequality with tax increases plus more spending.
So what? The Citizens United train has long since left the station, just so you know... Who is funding the Republicans, by the way? At least the list you cite are all American firms who may actually have an enlightened interest in a well educated healthy citizenry, otherwise they’d have donated to Republicans...
They paid-off the Republicans, also. So-called Parties are meaningless in a corporatocracy.
I’ve been criticizing Republicans here since the rise of the Tea Party for not having new ideas: drowning government in a bathtub is hardly new, and actually is reprehensible.
But I’m disappointed: Paul accuses both major parties of failing to act on what they already know, then proceeds to limit that to what LIBERALS “know”, simply dismissing what conservatives “know”. As a general matter, genuflection to ideological burning bushes NEVER gets us sustainable forward movement, but simply perpetuates our polarization; and it’s so transparent a dodge that the only ones who seriously consider it aren’t interested in solutions, but merely looking for talking-points to counter Fox or Rush.
I’m going to ignore it and address the proposition explicit in this column’s “hook” – that “politicians don’t need new ideas”. They certainly do.
The best example that fits the constraints of a comment is the crying need we have for new ideas to address the steady obsolescence of labor by automation. If we do find a solution, it will need to be completely new, because we’ve never faced this in all of our existence as humans, so we’ve never before given it much thought. Disagree with me if you must about the uniqueness of the challenge, and I’ll respond as to WHY it’s so unique this time.
Some of the truly new ideas we need on this matter, which don’t need to be generated by politicians but need to be embraced by them, easily could align with the pronouncements of Paul’s own burning bushes.
6
..."the crying need we have for new ideas to address the steady obsolescence of labor by automation. "
Not so. The "idea" is for people to get educated. And lost of it. Knowledge is the "new" idea, one that repubs in general have totally rejected. Repubs want to pay people to grunt at work, not think. Therefore only those who understand that education is the key will succeed. Simple, and not new. Just smart.
10
Richard,
For the Professor “Life was better” when books (Newspapers?) were printed on paper (clay tablets?) and only the proper sort of people had access to them. (That leaves both of us out!)
The Elite have never really bought into notion of an “enlightened citizenry” being the best defense against tyranny. The Liberal “Elite” has always take the view that only they “know” what’s “Humane, Just and Simple”. The rest of us are just “low information troglodytes” standing in their way or worse, irredeemably evil!
Just read the “approved comments” here!
5
Joe:
No, education is one of Paul's things we know about but on which we can't seem to usefully pull the trigger.
1
Excellent column, Paul!
I am astonished at how often I hear from Republicans that Obama's liberal agenda was a failure. But the truly Progressive agenda has barely been implemented! As you said, it was about halfway on health insurance. But he barely made headway on so many other crucial issues such as infrastructure, jobs programs, minimum wage, higher taxation, industrial policy, renewable energy, and climate change. And this failure was due entirely (and proudly) to Republican obstruction.
50
From 2008-2016, Democrats lost 1000 state/local seats, both houses of Congress and the presidency, because why? Republicans were mean to Obama?
Democrats never learn, do they?
1
What is your point?
My point is that a Progressive agenda was hardly enacted.
Absolutely correct, professor. I would, however, suggest that we have a bit of a problem when the philosophy of the new testament is too progressive for the religious right. The vengeful old testament suits them just fine. Getting this group to face the new Millennium might be a stretch.
18
The "old ideas" of Democrats and Republicans alike have failed, repeatedly, and that's why there is so much turmoil in the world, with much more to come.
That's why someone like Trump is President.
The kind of thinking presented here assumes that we live in a nice stable equilibrium, and we can extrapolate the past onto the future.
That's utterly absurd.
The future is going to look nothing like the past.
In many fields of endeavor, from economics to governance to business, what worked in the past will no longer work in the future, particularly in the Age of Automation.
And the government actually does have to be more like Apple to adapt to the VUCA environment of the 21st century. Agile software development practices are being applied to every realm of society, including government.
We listened to the dinosaur economists after 2008, and they failed spectacularly. Now they seem to spend most of their time "puzzled" and "perplexed" because the "economic levers" in their "toolbox" don't work like they used to.
We need new ideas more than ever before, and to adapt for the 21st century old ideas that may still be relevant.
We need to experiment.
And we need to learn the lesson of the colossal failure of globalization, which we're just beginning to reckon with, and think completely differently about the Digital Revolution if we're to avoid a cataclysm.
And first and foremost we need to stop listening to dinosaurs.
They've inflicted enough damage on humanity.
2
A small point : Swiss copied the German model. In both, the key is to have NON-FOR-PROFIT private companies compete.
What's wrong with the US health care l is that it is run by for profit companies. Ask any MD about the ever increasing metric put on them .
52
Why should I pay a fat cat in some private company a share of my healthcare dollars? We are paying 6.5% governmental administrative costs versus 20% for those businesses participating in the ACA. There is no good reason to enrich an insurance company when we don't need to do so.
3
I enjoyed this column, and agree with Krugman, especially where the Democrats are concerned. Why the Democrats? Because this country was at its zenith when run according to liberal Democratic policies.
Our American Dream was a direct result of Democratic policies put in place by either FDR or Truman. LBJ later on was a champion of a number of civil rights that today's Republicans wish people didn't have.
The Democrats simply must return to their roots as the party of working people. It would be good for the party, and wonderful for the country.
15
I beg Prof. Krugman's pardon, but to call the observation "that employers often have a lot of monopsony power in labor markets" a "discover[y]" is an utterly ridiculous ostrichism. Labor leaders and truly progressive economists have known this since ... let's see, since ... Marx? Before Marx? Adam Smith, maybe?
2
Try reading the Vox matarticle he cites. Calling this a discovery is obviously very legitimate. In fact, the main argument against it is that it is too new and not yet proven outside of theory.
2
It is mostly proven. I believe it ramped up around 2008, when employers had difficulty making money the old fashioned way - from their customers - because of the recession.
They then discovered they could make money off their employees by cutting back on jobs, wages, healthcare, benefits, and everything else, and making workers do the work of two or three or four people. Once out of the recession, they did not let up.
Exploiting workers in every way possible became the new normal.
Fourteen, I'm sorry to say your comment shows a deficiency in the history department. There is a long-standing term called "speedup" referring to the practice of making workers work faster and faster. Reducing wages is a well-established old-fashioned way to make more profit, too, though I agree in recent decades in this country it has not been prominent. In certain parts of the economy it has been an effective way to enforce speedup. Anyplace where piecework is the norm can have speedup forced by cutting the piecework rate. Agriculture in which workers, often illegal immigrants, are used to do hand labor like picking fruit is one such area.
Beyond that, inflation is a natural (to capitalism) means of cutting wages and salaries. It has been widely used in recent years for, e.g., our U.S. teachers.
"... why, exactly, do we demand that politicians have new ideas?"
This is a really central philosophical question. I would say it's because Americans have been conditioned, as consumers, always to seek the "new and improved" item. This concept inundates and pervades our culture. Out with the old and in with the new. No hand-me-downs; that's what old ideas are, or at least what they are perceived to be.
You can go with the oldies, but you have to be certain to spin them as new, fresh, and improved. Otherwise, no one will be buying.
And while we're at it, people won't buy an idea for $1.00. It has to sell for $0.99, if you catch my psychological drift. Then you might just have a snowball's chance in, well, where we are right now.
3
Exactly,
And I have a suspicion that that this “new idea” drivel may be also a conservative way of undermining the liberal support for democrats.
What matters is whether a politician has charisma.
A politician of either party can be expected to win the votes of committed voters of that party. Where the politician makes a difference in election outcome is charisma, or the ability to bring in citizens who are not committed voters, and get them to cast votes. Obama had charisma, driving into the voting booth vast numbers - often young, urban, and people of color. H. Clinton, at least to Americans outside of California, lacked that charisma. John Kerry and Al Gore lacked that charisma.
Do you want the Democrat to win? Then nominate the candidate who inspires unreliable voters to actually vote.
3
Charisma is only good for cult leaders. What should be done in elections is voters choosing a platform. Once the platform is chosen, the party responsible for it elects the president.
Consistency and perseverance are what is needed to maintain the good old "new" ideas and programs against the drag or erosion from reactionary forces. I hesitate to use the phrase "reactionary forces" because of the phrase's use in Communist purges of those-not-sufficiently-on-board. However, reactionary forces are what they are in our society, the institutionalized (in "think tanks" and "foundations") desire to return to the alleged former past glory days of free-range capitalism. It is not enough to push forward and enact a form of health care reform that addresses the availability and affordability of health insurance and makes minimal efforts to control costs unless the effort is sustained in political efforts against the erosive effect of "reactionary forces." Keep in mind that the health insurance and healthcare cost reforms resulted from political compromises arrived at in a democratic institution, our Congress, not from some so-called dictatorship of the proletariat.
Since the Democrats are in opposition now, they are judged differently than the Republicans. The latter are judged by what they have accomplished (so far, little other than giving $1.5 trillion mostly to corporations and wealthy donors). But, the Democrats are judged by what they could bring.
If they simply address the problems created by the Republicans, they will win voters over. For example:
1. "We will fix the health care system. The ACA helped millions of people gain health insurance. However, Trump and the Republicans have made it worse, not better. We will fix the problems that Trump has created and bring even more Americans into the system."
2. "The Republican tax cuts were irresponsible and benefited mostly the wealthy. We will increase the corporate tax rate to 25% and increase the highest personal tax rate to 45%. Then, we will lower taxes for the middle classes, e.g. by reducing the tax rates for the two lowest tax categories and allowing a partial deduction for payroll taxes".
3. "The Republicans have imposed trade tariffs in an attempt to save steel and aluminum manufacturing jobs. This hasn't worked and has cost our farmers jobs because of tariffs administered by China and others. We will repeal those tariffs while providing tax incentives to manufacturing companies to create more jobs".
And so on and so forth. The Democrats should focus on how they will fix problems that the Republicans created.
4
My suggestion on taxes is this:
Instead of talking about raising them, talk about lifting the cap on the payroll tax, and applying it to all income, earned and unearned. This could be coupled with a cut in its rate, plus a boost in retirement, health and education benefits. So the message would be entirely positive:
Lift the Cap, Cut the Rate, Boost the Benefits.
5
Dan Coleman: your SS check in old age is directly linked to your income and payroll taxes while you work. So, if you remove the cap -- you also remove the maximum payment (about $2900 today). That means....sending Bill Gates $15 million a month in retirement. No savings there.
The same can basically be said about education "reform" which is a virtually constant state of affairs in the US. We've known for a long time what most students need to learn - well-trained teachers with enough time to plan and collaborate together (ergo, no 2nd and 3rd jobs to make ends meet), giving students time to make meaning of new concepts and apply them, and attention to special learning needs, including for English learners. We simply need the political will to structure schools and school funding to sustain these conditions and stay the course. These steps are not glitzy but they work, even in school districts facing serious challenges, as Kirp reports about Union City NJ schools in the book Improbable Scholars.
8
NO!….what kids need are teachers who live in the same real world as the kids and their parent s-- i.e., not public union members living in a Socialist Workers Paradise! Kids need teachers who pay is NORMALIZED to the prevailing wages in that area….teachers who work all day and all year.
Kids -- especially high risk kids -- need all-day school from 8-5 or longer and year round. They need recess and time to play out doors. They need to read books and not use smartphones for everything. They need LESS technology and MORE reading, math, science and history.
For badly behaved kids, we need REFORM school -- mandatory -- to protect the good kids. And we need teams of truant officers to compel kids to be at school -- NO dropping out before age 18 for ANY reason.
I'll happily pay more taxes for these things, but NOT to pay for more luxuries for spoiled whinging public union teachers with giant pensions.
2
I agree with everything Prof Krugman says about old good ideas that work. But they need better marketing if they are going to be implemented.
The current president obtained that position through lies and bullying. Tearing down that facade would be a start.
8
As much as I would love universal healthcare in this country, I am surprised someone as intelligent as Paul Krugman would compare the United States to the UK, Canada, and Switzerland. Those countries have far fewer people than the United States.
3
The Canadian model, which delegates to each Province the administration of the single-payer system, would work fine here -- better here than there, in fact, if you believe in the "States as laboratories of experimentation" theory.
4
@R.S.: Add to that: The theory the Republicans go to great lengths to squelch when it's against the ideology of their sponsors, I mean "donors".
I believe the successful healthcare systems that Mr. Krugman mentioned can certainly be scaled in a country of greater population.
2
As the national media has become controlled by large corporations, it has more and more denigrated Democrats in subtle, yet effective ways.
The coverage of Hillary's campaign was almost uniformly negative. The media went out of its way to find reasons to criticize her or to question her integrity.
Simultaneously, the media never really examined Trump's history of lying and duplicity, instead treating him a phenomenon that required round the clock coverage, without any analysis as to his qualifications to be president. Essentially, he was given a pass.
It also glorified Bernie Sanders as a paragon of virtue, promoting the view that Hillary was not the best candidate that the Democrats could have put forward and giving Bernie's supporters an excuse to not vote for her.
Why would the media do this? Because, to them, corporate profits matter more than anything else.
The so-called Mainstream Media is not anti-Trump. That is a fallacy that has been promoted by Republicans to make Democrats defensive and to rile up the Republican base.
In reality, the MSM was and remains subtly anti-Democrat and pro-Republican.
Do not expect fair coverage. The big corporations are in the process of solidifying control of our government, and are using their control of major media outlets to further this goal.
In short, we are in the midst of a quiet coup-d'etat.
Better than anything else, this explains the double standard in coverage that Mr. Krugman identifies.
16
The Times, to its credit, while giving every Trump outrage big play like the other media, ran several thorough explorations of Trump's business depredations, such as how he made money on the bankruptcies of his casino businesses at the expense of big banks and naive, duped, or greedy* investors.
* Not mutually exclusive categories. And while greedy investors got what they deserved, that is no excuse for Trump's outright financial dishonesty.
3
Richard,
Right on target!
1
Paul, I think you miss the point. The issue is that every "old" idea comes with a trade off whether it's less choice or higher taxes or more regulation or more pollution. What "people" are desperately seeking are "new ideas" that don't have those trade offs ("great healthcare for everyone that costs less - Donald Trump" "Cutting taxes AND getting more services paid for out of the the extra growth!" - Reaganomics).
Republicans, and especially Trump Republications are very comfortable telling people they can have what they want and it'll be free of any trade-offs. But to be clear, Bernie Sanders was little better ("Free college" paid for by the "rich"). So long as people believe that the reason they aren't getting anything for free is because of "the man", "the corporations", "the deep state", or "the elites" they will keep pining for the "new ideas" that will make it happen.
15
The reality is, Americans want everything but don't want to pay for it. If we want to live in a civilized society, we have to be willing to pay for it. Otherwise, and its already happening slowly, we will end up like Somalia.
3
You wouldn’t know it if you only read the NYT, but Bernie’s free college plan was both fully costed and had a plan to pay for it. The highest estimates on cost would be $75 billion a year paid for by a 0.5% tax on stock trades (and I believe a 0.1% tax on bonds, iirc). These taxes were conservatively estimated to bring in $300 billion a year, easily paying for free college, and then some. The taxes are inspired by identical taxes in competing markets like London and Frankfurt.
Of course, the NYT and other Clinton-affiliated outlets weren’t to swift to explain the clarity and applicability of any of Bernie’s plans (quite the opposite....).
Qui bono? Who benefits? No matter how obviously bad a system is, once it becomes embedded in our socioeconomic system it becomes almost impossible to dislodge. Cases in point: our healthcare system, our military-industrial complex, our fossil fuel energy system. Follow the money: Once embedded a bad obsolete system commands cash flows that it uses to corrupt all attempts to reform or replace it.
20
There are plenty of good objections to Hillary's ideas (the disastrous "New Democrat" legacy of which she's the standard-bearer), but the current objection is to her endless recrimination tour and apparent unwillingness to leave the podium, long after her welcome ran out.
Dr. Krugman seems to be confusing what we, in the abstract, know about policy, and politicians who can't seem to give up on their own ambitions to transform the nation in their own sorry images.
"... the current objection is to her endless recrimination tour and apparent unwillingness to leave the podium, long after her welcome ran out."
Hillary Rodham Clinton can remain on the national stage as long as she wants to, as long as she feels the need to speak out. In my opinion, she should be president and our country is the worse because she isn't. What happened in 2016 was a terrible way to "lose" an election.
I find it disconcerting that so many want her off the stage, but there is nary a peep about Sanders getting off the stage.
3
@Mary
You *are* aware that Hillary Clinton lost an election the Democrats should have taken by a landslide, and that her presence on the national stage isn't helpful to Democrats?
And have you been listening lately? Her "deplorables" gaffe isn't the worst of it. Most recently she insisted that only the backwaters of the country didn't vote for her, 'cause she's so great. Sounds like a winning strategy in reverse Democratic fortunes, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania!
Bernie Sanders isn't leaving the stage because he's the most popular politician in America. But, then again, Democrats do love to lose elections. So why not boot him off?
2
A new idea
Why can't we be like the Nordic countries, Sweden , Norway ?
Oops : We are not Denmark
And Mr. Krugman pronounced the candidate running on it to be over the edge
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/08/opinion/sanders-over-the-edge.html
While coming up with the new idea that Trump was right on economics
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/07/opinion/paul-krugman-trump-is-right-o...
6
"While coming up with the new idea that Trump was right on economics" is disingenuous(trying to fool the reader).
What Krugman says in that column:
He is not saying trump is right "So am I saying that Mr. Trump is better and more serious than he’s given credit for being? Not at all — he is exactly the ignorant blowhard he seems to be. "
"Again, I’m not making a case for Mr. Trump. There are lots of other politicians out there who also refuse to buy into right-wing economic nonsense, but who do so without proposing to scour the countryside in search of immigrants to deport, or to rip up our international economic agreements and start a trade war."
And trump is just the same cheap grifter he's always been.
2
Yet more misleading quotes. Have you gotten to 500 yet? Could be. I remember the first was associating PK with Enron - typical GOP out-of-context.
GOP troll or Russian troll? Or both.
Why can't we have a practical, fact-based discussion with Republicans about how to accomplish our goals?
Oops! The Republicans' goal is to prevent discussion and prevent our goals!
I agree with Krugman, but what he says here is not entirely the point. Call me cynical, but the main reason politicians need to call their ideas new is that the media won't help promote their run for office unless the storyline reads "new and improved." Doesn't need to be true; just needs to be something the media can sell. Look at Trump. A "populist," eh?
38
PK is basically right, there are solid policy ideas out there in
Health Care , some form of universal care adapted to reality
Trade, more constructive engagement alliances with cooperating parties.
SS and Welfare reforms, etc
Policy wonks abundent.
The problem is getting new blood younger leadership, the over 70 crowd,over 80 in Pelosis case, just doesnt optically work. At 67 myself I do NOT condemn these people to the junkyards of history but it is thelack of energy and leadership that fails. The Donald, for all the bad things I see, brought and brings a chaotic energy and leadership.
Hillary brought back the same old conflicts, 6 figure paid speeches by the dozens. Schumer, Pelosi, Biden, heard that, so what.? Bernie S, a great instigator and voice but past expiry for 35 or so percent of voters.
Rebranding sounds awful, but it is the issue.
3
The problem is the status quo is just fine with our economic and political elites. After all, they spent tons of money and decades getting our political system just the way they like it.
The business model reigns supreme, even in the public sector where it does not function for the public (health care, education, transportation). For 40 years it has been The business of government is business.
Politics is all about tax cuts for the rich & corporations; deregulation of businesses in clear need of regulating (finance, big polluters); buying political influence through un-transparent campaign financing (all perfectly legal); minimizing the influence of citizens (gerrymandering, voter ID, electoral college politics); and keeping the budget under control by cutting social programs.
Wonder why we have the most expensive corporate health care system in the world, where Big Pharma and health insurance CEOs take a huge share of our healthcare dollars compared to other countries? Why is our defense budget many times greater than that for any other country, and was just increased more by the GOP, while government programs for people are on the GOP chopping block, and our teachers in many states don't make a living wage?
Guess which sector of our society does not actively want rational, thoughtful, fair-minded policy driving political decisions and why? There is money to be had and investors to please when what is public becomes privatized.
Both parties and the media sustain it
12
"Both parties and the media sustain it."
And the false equivalency you suggest here also helps sustain it.
2
When media pundits urge Democratic politicians to "go big, go bold and go new," what they're really prescribing is more austerity for the masses and more riches for the billionaires and corporations who keep them on the air and in print.
This embrace of plutocratic values - "ending welfare as we know it," the deregulation of Big Finance and the telecoms, the offshoring of jobs and manufacturing via "free" trade deals, and the "tough on crime" policies resulting in mass incarceration - is how the "New Democrats" first grabbed power in the 90s. Despite the aftershocks of these neoliberal policies and the loss of a thousand legislative seats in the past decade alone, the party elders and their media stenographers want more of the same. This championship of the status quo is actually their perverted definition of "new."
It doesn't help their message that the most famous New Democrats are now hitting their 70s and 80s. The pundits and the oligarchic donor class running this show are desperate for younger, more charismatic "rising stars" to sell us the same old Incrementalism You Can Believe In."
Of course Medicare for All is a great idea, and would be much more cost-effective than our current privatized system. But they don't want to admit this because ordinary people having too many nice things might give Mr. Market a nervous breakdown.
Until we force finance capital and the government to get a divorce, and overturn Citizens United, nothing is going to change.
121
Karen,
You just might want to read BBC news a bit more to understand the trials and tribulations of their NHS (single payer government healthcare). One recent trial involved a small child who was allowed to die because care was too expensive and who was not allowed to leave the U.K. to receive free care abroad!
2
Richard-you might look up the difference between single payer and the British NHS in which the physicians and the hospitals are government owned. The British, notwithstanding the NHS problems, love their system and would never trade it for ours. Medicare is the model for single payer(and beloved by its insured) in which the federal government is the insurer, the collector of premiums and the payer. Hospitals and physicians would remain independent and private as they are now. Try not to conflate the two.
This administration has educated at least the voting public that actually thinks, realize that people in charge who cant read or think in power are destroying our country and our lives. This time people are not going to be fooled whether it be democrats or republicans. We are talking about our lives and we are not rich like all of our politicians. Thank goodness that Paul Ryan who wants to destroy the safety net for seniors is going off into the sunset. All we want from politicians is for them to do there jobs and represent the people. It will be harder for do nothing politicians to stay in office the spotlight is on everyone. Now that Apple is giving millions to shareholders the tax cut was just a giveaway to rich people, so lets keep ourselves educated, go to town meetings ,question these potential representatives and register to vote. A great piece that makes us all think..
2
The great thing about labeling your proposal as "new" (aside from tapping into the public's desire for distraction: "New! Just like Grandma used to make!") is that "new" programs don't have track records to defend. Got a failed idea? Call it "new" and the failure doesn't apply to it any more.
Prof. Krugman does signal the area that seems new, when he mentions minimum wage laws and labor markets. Old think: achieve full employment. New think: make sure that non-wealthy employees get a fair share of corporate income.
1
See the Times article by Hiba Hafiz about the need for a Division of Economic Research at the National Labor Relations Board.
Bravo.
4
What's worse for politicians of the republican variety, no ideas...or bad one's? Persistent 'rigid' ideas to enrich the wealthy, while screwing the poor? Tell the unadorned truth or just butter up lies and fiction to simulate factoids, Trump-style? If we could agree on the needs of the common man/woman/child, and fulfill them to the best of our abilities, ideas may flow uninterrupted, as the societal changes are constant and demand an open mind.
4
This opinion piece misses the point. The criticism of the Dems is not that they don't have new ideas, but that they don't promote GOOD ideas. They are fixated on Russiagate and they blame other people for their electoral failures, rather than explaining clearly what good ideas they DO stand for.
3
Messaging ("A Better Deal") is certainly part of the problem - for example, they have no hat. But they also have no Big Ideas (Except for Healthcare) - just small ones - nothing revolutionary that would motivate turnout.
Democrats prefer Clinton-style triangulation and PC-talk so no one is alienated, especially their corporate donors. The Democratic leaders are poll-driven followers, not leaders. They're afraid of risk.
Voters won't turnout for anyone afraid of taking risks, and turnout (not policy) is the key success factor in winning elections.
The question has many parts, most significantly what type of candidates and what story line will win Congressional seats in November? To begin, the septuagenarians and octogenarians should step down, they are tired goods. For Democrats, certainly "A Better Deal" is just another loser. But I do think the general populace is thoroughly tired of vile. A return to civility, with an emphasis on both creating and filling new types of jobs in the technical future, and support for major infrastructure renewal, might work. Occupy Wall Street was another catchy phrase, some variety of that would be nice. Maybe "Restore Democracy to American, make Wall Street pay its fair share." And: "Republicans want to install a republic, governed by one dictator and the oligarchs. Vote for a government of and by the people, vote Democratic." And "Vote against the NRA and its supporters, make American safe again."
If there truly is a blue wave, how will Trump react? Con the con man. Tell him if he supports the Democratic initiatives he may lose his hate-filled supporters, but will replace them with huge numbers of admirers who will make him the most beloved president in history, and get him re-elected in 2020. But he's going to have to let go of Putin.
4
our rural district is represented by a republican that is a retired army officer..... he does not appear to have all of his marbles and is pretty much unavailable to his constituents. does not do email, message center full etc. now we have a democratic woman running against him and the first word out of the local republican party people is that she is "sort of dull, does not present well and seems to not have any ideas". actually she is an RN with a long history in healthcare administration and works for a company that is opening HIV clinics across the US.
lets see, old retired guy resting on his laurels and following the republican pack or bright woman active in an area that is second in importance only to climate change?
21
Thank you, Sir. New and improved usually ain't. We Democrats need to go back to the future, and claim our history. The place to start: Medicare For ALL : 2020. Enough of this fighting and paying the parasitic insurance companies, big Pharma, and armies of useless gatekeepers. THIS is the winning issue, even here in ruby red Kansas. Just saying.
66
I agree. I know so many people, including my brother who is conservative, who want to see Universal Health Care.
10
Phyliss-I am with you. We do need Medicare country-wide for everyone. Can you imagine the good we could do with 6.5% of healthcare payments going towards admin costs versus the current 20% for-profit business admin costs. I think we can afford to save lives and cure a lot of suffering for the difference. As you said, this is a winning issue.
9
Laurie and wolf: a winning issue, but not one Democrat has ever run on this nor suggested it, nor has anyone got a realistic idea of how to pay for it.
Dear Professor Krugman,
Given what you have written today I am surprised to see you stopped short and didn’t name the politician who fits the bill: Bernard Sanders, already the most popular politician in the US!
7
The status quo is resilient. It is hard to change habits, even when it's clearly understood we have something to gain from it, dieting for instance.
I advocate for better bike lanes, safer crosswalks, and more transit use in Los Angeles, the Sodom and Gomorrah of car dependence. Those poor people trapped in their cars and stuck in traffic don't know, don't care or are biased when told European cities and beyond function much better than typical US cities.
Yes, Americans are exceptional.
6
Europe is small and compact, compared to the US. What works there, will not work here. Ask those poeople in traffic in LA if they would EVER take a bus. They will tell you "no way".
2
Dr. Krugman! Horrors! For shame! America and a good idea? Hmmm; let’s see how that could come about, shall we?
Good ideas come from education. Has not the (“sneering”—your adjective) Republican Party, since, oh, 1968 (the Richard Nixon-led effective destruction of the two party system) badgered Democrats and the general public that public funding should not be spent on people (education, e.g.) but on corporations (“my friend”) like the military industrial complex?
A lazy, complacent (mostly) well-fed, well-housed populace has bought into the right-wing siren song that the past should guide America—backwards. And Republicans, with their demonic messaging, have always (seemingly) had the quicker entry into the heart of American darkness —where intolerance lives. Republicans conquer by first dividing. Democratic congressional delegations—patriotically inclined—agreed to work with Republican administrations. Was that the case for Bill Clinton’s or Barack Obama’s presidencies?
You’re right; we need to dust off old relics that surely would start the national engine, but we’ve descended down the steep stairs of ideology and division. This is what Republicans want: stagnation and decrepitude.
Compounding our plight is the smell of Socialism that wafts around Democrats, a cunning and subtle machination that the GOP keeps well-oiled.
Is there any doubt that our yellow brick road to Oz began with a Republican president who would ultimately dress in “I am not a crook” glad rags?
5
The Democrats should just go back to the Four Freedoms of FDR - the freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.
That should cover it. And let's see how the GOP expresses opposition to them!!!
11
How is it that a year and a half since the elections and we still don't have an economic plan from Schumer and Pelosi unless it's by deliberate omission? FDR's Four Freedoms are noble sentiments but you won't hear even vague platitudes like that from the Democratic establishment because behind all those "freedoms" is the requirement of higher wages and taxes from the donor class. Dr. Krugman won't say it but Schumer and Pelosi are just as big a pair of sellouts as McConnell and Ryan. They all occupy their places of power because of their fundraising prowess and not any supposed policy savvy.
5
Stan,
A $13-$15 minimum wage, infrastructure program paid by higher taxes on wealthy, investments in rural America, investments in green energy, adding Public Option to Obamacare, more affordable higher education, apprenticeship programs for unemployed, and much more (see Hillary's platform)
DID NOT WORK IN 2016!
Instead of complaining and blaming whoever you wish, what different program would you propose???
CarolinaJoe: where do you get this stuff? Hillary said $12 an hour was the maximum minimum wage. She said "no public option" -- it was off the table. No single payer, ever. She wanted to be Obama 2.0....the third term. She would not have changed a THING. And "more affordable higher education" is a wish -- not a plan.
Spot on, as usual. We have long known what to do to have a fairer, more humane society. We have examples all around the world. We refuse to implement these well-tested, proven approaches because of our racism, unbridled greed, myopia, and religious fanaticism.
As Krugman so rightly says, we don't need new ideas; we need to start treating other people as if they were not really so different from us and to stop pretending that particular dogmas that conflict with overwhelming scientific evidence are "true." THESE ideas have been around for centuries--if not millennia. And we continue to disregard them.
8
Bernie Sanders, Dr Krugman, have you heard of him? Maybe it is time for you to rediscover that gem, the one you made fun of and went along with Hillary Clinton.
11
The world has moved on. We can no longer contain our dark side. It appears everywhere, in tweets, in Facebook posts and all the other social media.
It isn't the comments themselves that are significant. The important difference is in the hostility of the population that has successfully been turned by the Right Wing. Their goal of dividing farmer from farmer, laborer from laborer, rich from poor black or Hispanic from white has worked.
Even some Bernie and Hillary supporters are stupidly still battle 2016, many not recognizing that they too have been divided and that they risk losing the greatest opportunity in perhaps two decades to win Congress and stop the tyrant Trump.
I think we must take sustenance from the recent victories in Virginia and Alabama and the huge change in attitude by many in Georgia and Arizona. Some people may have turned off their radios and actually gone into the streets to find that their neighbors are not enemies, but families with needs and concerns and joys that are exactly like theirs.
The Koch brothers and the other billionaires who fund the institutes, who buy their way into university curricula, who subsidize the Right Wing radio networks and Sinclair and Fox News Channel--those people spread literally millions of divisive messages every day.
For those of us (www.populistdaily.com) who have warned about the Right Wing for years, there is some small satisfaction in a slight return of common sense.
Now it must turn into votes.
75
I agree. Last Sunday my husband and I had a rather bizarre encounter with a Prescott resident. We were walking down the street and stopped to pet his dog. Then we started chit-chatting as people here do. The next thing we knew he started slamming Obama. I was so taken aback, I didn't know what to say. So we said goodbye and went to our car. It was so out of left-field because we weren't talking about politics. This hatred of people who have different opinions has got to stop. I think he thought we would agree. Obviously we didn't but were shocked at his remark and rather than start a fight, decided to be gracious and leave. My votes will go to only Democrats right now. On occasion I would vote for a Republican who was a better candidate and was moderate. No more.
11
For me, it's not about ideas, old, news, good, bad. It's about process. Money is corrupting politics. Politics is corrupting the legal system. When George H.W. Bush announced he would pick Clarence Thomas over more qualified jurists solely because Clarence Thomas would vote politically, he was announcing that a properly functioning legal system is less important than accomplishing his political agenda. When Chief Justice Roberts ruled that unlimited money could influence politics, he was ruling that a properly functioning political system was less important than accomplishing his political agenda. Today, as to the Russian investigation, the Republicans have decided that a political system free of interference by a foreign country is less important than accomplishing their political agenda. If the systems we relied on were working properly, the good ideas would be implemented. The fact that they aren't indicates that our government systems are failing.
65
I completely agree with Paul Krugman, and I would add that politicians don’t need new ideas, they need new solutions.
I literally work on tech modernization projects for the government. Nothing secret, just your run of the mill tech. Politicians, Congress, write the rules around which technology can be implemented in the government and I’ve noticed a depressing lack of tech literacy around policy making. So for example instead of developing a system that would save money through efficiency gains, say for Medicare, politicians would rather just cut funding, cut services. Cutting funding is easier conceptually than developing solutions.
There are some great solutions the government could leverage, but politicians aren’t very tech savvy so here we are.
24
What is stopping people with good old ideas from gaining the political power to implement them? Here is one new idea (from Brian Beutler) that might illuminate the answer. How about a Congressional investigation into the effects of media propaganda on the public's understanding of economic, political and foreign policy issues?
38
"media propoganda" ?? This drastically understates the problem. Looking back at my education and thinking critically about "american values and principles" founded on our magical history of individualism. I was shocked to discover how much propaganda I had been fed and internalized. The propaganda of "free market capitalism" and the absolute faith voters have in this notion preclude almost all debate on the limits, costs, benefits, constraints, regulations, and or alternatives. Politicians jump on the lowest common denominator and frame everything as an us versus them forced choice. Media propaganda is constrained within the us versus them/ red versus blue frame. American citizens must face the reality that have limited skill in critically thinking through a complex problem AND they are willfully ignorant about the past.
4
“What we need is an effective political majority willing to act on what we already know.”
That would be neither the Republicans nor the Democrats, as both are beholden to their corporate donors.
We know that money in politics and income inequality are drivers of political power concentrations away from the people and democracy.
So who, other than the progressives, are talking about a big jump in minimum wage, bringing back strong unions, and rebalancing labor market power?
The answer is no one - because they're dependent upon their corporate donors. You cannot have a democracy with politicians dependent upon corporate donors.
Therefore, no one should ever vote for any politician that takes any money from a corporation.
3
"Monopsony"....hmm, will have to add that one to my ongoing personal lexicon. Thanks, Professor!
3
Monopsony (mo·nop'·so·nee) is a Very Important Word.
One should rail against the evil of Monopsony and elevate the righteousness of anti-Monopsony with every breath.
Monopsony underlies the rise of corporatocracy and the decline of democracy.
Monopsony means that labor markets are not competitive (as most everyone assumes), which is why we have massive income inequality and concentrations of political power.
The cause of monopsony is money in politics, which is why no one should ever vote for a politician that takes money in any way from corporations or the ultra-rich.
Doesn't matter the party or what they say or stand for. "Small donors only" is all you need to know. It's the perfect litmus test.
4
A valid point about health care reform is that all options were discussed 30 years ago when Hillary Clinton worked on the problem. The choices were laid out and nothing "new" is going to suddenly appear. The ACA is the Republican-preferred plan - they've clearly got nothing else.
7
Au contraire; the GOP-preferred plan is nothing. Survival of the fittest- or. more precisely, survival of the richest. When an employee loses his/her health, that employee becomes expendable. After all, replacements will always be available and automation can do the rest...
87
There is a simple premise that the United States of America was founded upon. ( there was a revolt in Boston harbor and a revolution fought over it if memory serves correctly )
That is no taxation without fair representation. ( or for progressive purposes, that if you make more money, then you should be paying more taxes progressively upwards for a government of the people, by the people and for the people )
Every single thing flows from that premise and if government worked properly ( anywhere in the world ), then there would be no need for charity. ( or the outcry of socialism thereof )
The republican party has espoused socialism for the rich ( risk to be mitigated by the middle class and poor and profits to be locked in for the rich )
The Democratic party has espoused that original dictate of the founding fathers ( to one degree or other ) while usually being elected in to clean up the mess that republican administrations have created.
Vote accordingly.
84
"That is no taxation without fair representation."
Indeed! The problem is that Congress, especially the Senate with 2 senators per state, but also the House with its voter suppression and gerrymandering, does not allow for "fair representation."
Nor does the Electoral College, brought to you by slave-owning white elites. We need a democracy, not a republic.
7
What new ideas has the present administration presented? The tax cut bill came out of the past. The border wall was already in place (and worked poorly). Rejection of climate change and improved technology is hardly new. As PK states, there are plenty of good ideas still waiting to be tried, but working elsewhere in the world.
22
Moving past the two Republican crimes against American humanity of the greatest 'free-market' healthcare rip-off in the world at an obscene 17% of GDP and the Trump-Pruitt Environmental Pollution Agency, let's give full credit to the primary Republican crime against American humanity: the branding, marketing and force-feeding of 'supply-side' economics strychnine to 320 million.
This incredible economic fraud and Big Lie is simply a form of economic torture and sadism, an enshrined misanthropic assault on virtually every building block of this democratic republic that has decimated the election process, destroyed national infrastructure, trashed public education, made a Reverse Robin souffle of the tax code, and pervertedly turned public goods like national defense, prisons, healthcare, and the the environment into private profit centers for vulture capitalists.
Supply-side economics is a Republican fraud.
Demand-side economics is what powers healthy economies; Keynesian economics is what works well, not right-wing cuckoo Robber Baron economics.
Higher worker wages, strong worker unions, high consumer spending and increased government spending leads to business expansion resulting in greater employment opportunities.
Higher wages and higher levels of employment create a multiplier effect that further stimulates aggregate demand leading to greater economic growth.
Bring back Keynesian economics.
And dump Republican Reverse Robin Hood national-train-robbery economics.
460
It was a Democratic House that passed Reagan's economic and tax policies. Both parties have supported policies which have dramatically increased income and wealth inequality in this country, and the shrinkage of the middle class.
35
John, the GOP-sponsored Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 (ERTA) "Kemp (Republican)–Roth (Republican) Tax Cut" was passed by a Republican President, a Republican Senate and yes, a Democratic House, but it was a Republican trickle-down voodoo idea all along, and you know it...or do you ?
The Dow Jones average, which had been over 1000 before enactment of Regan's ERTA, fell to 770 by September 1982.
Much of the Republican's 1981 ERTA tax cut strychnine was backed out in September 1982 by the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 (TEFRA) - introduced by Democratic House member Pete Stark, sometimes called the largest tax increase of the post-war period.
In the year after enactment of the GOP-inspired ERTA tax cuts, the deficit ballooned, which in turn, drove interest rates from around 12% to over 20%, which, in turn, drove the economy into the second dip of the 1978-82 "double dip recession".
The "Reagan recovery" began within weeks of enactment of Democratically-inspired TEFRA tax increase.
Bill Clinton and Barack Obama also raised taxes with great economic broad-based success.
History clearly shows that Republicans cut taxes and it trashes the country and Democrats raise taxes and it fixes the country.
You shameful false equivalence is incredibly destructive to the nation's IQ.
Democrats have their faults, but Republicans are demonstrated wrecking balls.
D to go forward; R for reverse.
Not to dilute the message, but Democrat politicians should receive a special mention.
They too make their well-programmed supporters dance the tune of their corporate donors and vote against their self-interest.
Any Democratic politician unable to deliver gets their corporate funding cut off.
15
New ideas? I'll vote for a candidate that believes in a few old ideas like honesty, integrity, frugality, kindness of spirit and the rule of law. Find me such a candidate. Please.
515
The voters don't seem to care about the virtues mentioned in this comment. Honesty and integrity in particular. We have a president who lies with impunity and has no integrity, along with numerous other faults. Doesn't seem to matter, neither the press or public seem to care - so we go on with a shrug of the shoulder and are content to accept this behavior as the new status quo. Big donors like it that way as long as they get what they want. Sorry state of affairs to be sure.
9
I would settle for a "normal" president. I am a registered Democrat but, back in 2016, I would have voted for John Kasich: he seemed to be the only "normal" candidate; perhaps that is why he was not nominated.
2
Found. Sanders is the name. Didn't need the donor class. Didn't need to wait forever for Citizens United to go away. His campaign WAS publicly financed. Despite the full media blackout, he almost became president.
Imagine a Democratic real populist in the White House now. We thought
he was practically the Second Coming of FDR!
P.S. I switched to being a FERVENT Hillary supporter once she was nominated. We ALL did. All of the Sanders supporters supported and voted for the Democratic nominee. Sick of all the accusations of staying home.
We were very political,clear minded and very committed.
11
Here's the thing: the people who elect politicians need a good reason to vote for them and their priority, right now, is different than Paul's (whatever that may be).
You got it so wrong Bud,
Given the state of national affairs last 4 decades people just need a good lie (or national catastrophe) to vote. They have been electing mostly ideologues, crooks and fools.
1
Just a quick addition: Don't forget to mention that the VA is an example of direct provision by the government in America and that this model is widely supported its patients.
156
Not a good example. The VA provides substandard care everyday, everywhere. Its patient either have no other choice or are unaware of the better options. It had to forge its metrics to make itself look even nominally acceptable. Ask yourself one very simple question, what percentage of VA employees would choose to have the VA in charge of their personal healthcare - likely almost none, but go to Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Kaiser its almost 100%.
3
Andrew--ask most anyone who is receiving care in the VA system, and they generally receive excellent care. You are probably thinking about the severe problem of 'getting into' the VA system for care, and so you decided to make a false equivalency as to level of VA care.
Lying, yes lying about the VA is not flattering Andrew.
@Laurie: after losing his health insurance in 2016, my husband went on the VA plan. He tried once before during a layoff but was 49 -- "too young" -- I think you have to be over 55 to qualify. We were very grateful that it was there for him, so he did not get stuck with lousy worthless Obamacare! The VA plan is "so so". It's better than nothing certainly. There are no monthly premiums, which is a godsend -- my husband pays $15 for a regular office visit and $50 for specialists. He had to pay $90 for a colonoscopy though -- mine, under Obamacare, was free. And the prescriptions at the VA are so expensive, he's better off paying out of pocket for generics. The facility in our city is new and very nice, with free parking downtown (!!!) -- a huge perk -- and comparable to any of the regular hospital chains. HOWEVER: just last week, my husband was denied a prescription for a medicine he has taken for many years, properly and without abuse because "the VA won't give out opioid meds anymore" (!!!).
Finally, someone on the progressive side makes the obvious, but seldom acknowledged point: There are plenty of good, albeit old, policy ideas that progressives should embrace, despite their age.
During the Clinton campaign critics constantly accused her and her advisers of "having no new ideas," when the reality was that her campaign published reams of policy papers that were replete with good progressive ideas, many "old," but" so what? To be sure, toward the end of the campaign she augmented these with policy proposals borrowed from Bernie Sanders [e.g. the 15$ minimum wage, a slight move toward single-payer health insurance, and the like]. Many of these were also "old," but again so what? Would that she had won the election and were now on the party to implementing many of them.
Mr Krugman makes an important point in this column: On the progressive policy front oldies but goodies can indeed be goodies.
273
I meant to say "...on the PATH" to implementing many of them..."
4
One reason why Bernie Sanders made such a good showing was that he was actually able to articulate a vision in a few short sentences. To some, it grew stultifying but it worked. I'm probably being generous here, but to expect any more than 5% of the electorate to actually wade through any candidate's white papers online is an absurdity and that goes for Democrats and Republicans alike.
There's a reason Clinton's agenda was buried online so artfully and that is because she had no intention nor expectation of ever implementing it. She was the candidate, after all of, "incrementalism", which is code for dragging your feet so your plutocratic backers can continue to rake in the dough until the system finally collapses.
13
Stan,
if democrats won't support "incrementalism" then conservatives will win every time with their version of "incrementalism". It has been working for them beautifully!
Yes, democrats simply should just grow up and think long game. Show up and vote!
In my opinion, the only thing that will get this country on track to be a country that cares about its citizens is publicly-financed elections with small donations from individuals. That's the only way our politicians will pay attention to their constituents and do what they want and need, rather than slavishly bow down to big business. Right now, our leaders are essentially telling most of the population to go pound sand. The idea of clean elections is not a new one, but it just languishes on the back burner without so much as a stir.
588
The trouble with this analysis is that money doesn't vote and business doesn't vote. People vote. So long as people vote for those who take money and do the bidding of business, that is the root of the problem.
All else is an easy evasion of responsibility.
We have met the enemy and it is us.
24
Carole, In addition to your post, elected politicians will spend much less time searching for donations and more time actually investigating issues and governing.
We don't need high powered lobbyists who push their "owners" agenda.
40
Carole, one problem is that you still have to narrow the slate of candidates down. We can't vote for 1,000 people for president, for example. Up to this point, the ability to get money is what narrows down the number of candidates.
One new idea would be to have a website where candidates could post their statements. As with Amazon and Google, if people were more interested in something a candidate said, his or her statement would be easier to find than others'. That would help take the focus off money and image and put it on issues.
To do this, we would have to amend the constitution to outlaw political advertising. A lot of the power of money comes from the cost of buying ads.
11
America's skeletons are blocking the signal we all desperately need to receive. We just went through a period of "pseudo-equality" over the last couple of decades, only seeing occasional flare-ups in bigotry during the OJ trial, the Matthew Shepard case, and the fallout from 9/11. The 2010s exposed what was al bubbling under the surface, resulting in mass confusion and anger that lead to the worst presidential election I've seen in my lifetime.
We have the solutions to most of these problems, so what bothers me is that these solutions require cooperation from everyone in order for them to be successful. I don't know when "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" became synonymous with selfishness, but it has become the unofficial anthem of those hellbent on showcasing their perceived superiority. We seem to forget that nations are built through solidarity, not individualism.
35
A good Nation is built on solidarity, individualism only gives birth to dictatorships and fascism. In my mind Rome`s decline started with Julius, or when one individual personified Rome. And now we have trump, a wanna be who can only sing one note-ME ME ME!
8
New ideas Republican-style are just about new ways of packaging and weaponizing old resentments for consumption by the deplorably uninformed voter. As time and technology change, so too must the approach for making people think that race, poverty and infirmity are choices made by people who are trying to take advantage of them.
This Us-vs-Them mentality pits us against one other. It makes us vote against our own interests to defend ourselves against a non-existent enemy. It causes us to give power to the people who feed off of our ignorance, and to do so willingly and enthusiastically.
No evidence to the contrary will suffice. That’s because people naturally harbor wrong ideas about many things, and Republicans merely exploit and encourage the worst parts of our nature. People would rather believe that only inferior people get sick, get old, choose to be gay or have the wrong skin color.
There are practical and humane solutions to all of our problems, but we’d prefer to feel superior to others rather than identify with them. To look at Republicans honestly, we’d have to look at ourselves with the same critical eye. And that’s not going to happen.
Republicans see the uninformed and resentful crowd as a valuable natural resource that can be converted into wealth and power for those who know how. As long as our populace isn’t smart enough to be swayed by simple-minded jeers and taunts, we’ll have Republicans pulling their strings and making them dance.
246
A superb deconstruction of Republican nihilism, sedition and the right-wing organ-harvesting of the American brain, Gemli san.
"If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
---- Democrat LBJ talking about the Republican national platform a few years before the GOP officially adopted the Southern Strategy
Pachyderm Spongiform Encephalopathy: GOP 2018
80
S,
“Moderated for Civility”? None for me thanks!
@Socrates,
Thanks. For a party without brains, they sure do think up some clever ploys.
21
The New Deal had a lot of good ideas and put many in practice, and the economy worked very well while they were in effect. So did most ideas of the Great Society, although liberals at that time had the mistaken idea that poverty would soon be ended. Conservatives have been working assiduously to reverse these advances with the expected results. To counter the success of Republicans, which was attained primarily by exploiting racism and not by any economic benefits, and to get the money they think they need for campaigns, Democrats have drifted too far away from New Deal-type thinking.
Other countries have tried ideas out, especially health care, and we can learn from their experience. It is quite clear that the common element in successful universal health care systems, which all other advanced countries have, is ultimate control of prices by the government. A "free market" in health care simply does not work, primarily because consumers can't shop for price. The government must serve as bargaining agent for healthcare consumers (if not as the actual provider, which also works). Obamacare is currently based on preserving the profits of the healthcare and insurance industries. It won't work unless this is explicitly abandoned.
109
Yes skepto, the only part of the PK column I didn't quite agree with was his assertion that O-care got us "half-way there" (to universal health care). Perhaps it wasn't a step in the wrong direction, and it has helped millions-myself included for a few years before Medicare eligibility-but it has also poured billions into the for-profit Medical Industrial Complex, in a way legitimizing it's ongoing theft.
10
PK nailed it. Why don't we learn from others? Any public service worker can tell you how to improve existing services? Why do we not learn from other countries who have faster transportation, better education outcomes, human-scale urban design or better housing practices like housing designed specifically for people with autism? Why don't "the people" agree on what kind of society they want, then elect the politicians on the basis on their ability to implement the vision! My guess is that conservatives and liberal citizens are not as far apart as they think they are in terms of what good communities look like.
123
I'll tell you why we don't learn from others: Citizens United.
4
Politicians need to cuddle up to big money people and corporations. They need them to finance their campaigns and to provide them with cushy seats on their boards of directors when they retire from politics.
Big money people and corporations don't care about this country, the environment, the poor, the elderly, the sick, our children, those in prison. They only care about making money. When they tell you anything else, they are lying.
Ideas that benefit people - Medicare for all, free college, affordable housing, mass transit, etc. - all cost money. Having to pay those costs would interfere with the prime purpose of big money people and corporations.
It's not that we don't learn from others. It's that our politicians put their welfare and the welfare of their donors above the good of the country. And it is shameful and it is sickening.
3
@redick3: you mean....we had no problems in society whatsoever, prior to 2010? because that's when Citizen's United was decided by SCOTUS.
One thing we could do is stop letting the perfect get in the way of the good.
Ever since Gary Hart's candidacy was destroyed by intrusive coverage of his private life, it's been harder and harder to find "good" candidates willing to run for office. What we get is "perfect" candidates; perfect but dull.
We don't need perfect candidates who can check off every box of our wishlist of virtues; we need good candidates who can communicate and deliver on their promises.
95
I think that Hart's campaign was killed by him *inviting* the press to follow him, and then visiting his mistress.
To me, that demonstrated some kind of crazy recklessness which should be nowhere near the nuclear button.