archives

Paul Krugman:

Rather than admit that pollution is a problem the government has to solve — even as the consequences of acid rain became ever more alarming, not to mention as America's failure to act provoked a near-crisis in relations with Canada, which was suffering the effects of U.S.-generated sulfur dioxide — the Reaganites insisted that there was no problem at all. They denied the evidence, questioned the science, called for more research and did nothing. Sound familiar?

And that, surely, is the line the Democrats should be pushing in this election: Republicans have become the party of denial. If a problem can't be solved with deregulation and tax cuts, they pretend it doesn't exist. [...]

The health care situation, in case you haven't noticed, is going from bad to worse. [...]

The Democrats have been offering real plans in response; they're not perfect, but they are serious.

The GOP, by contrast — and this goes as much for McCain as for the Bush administration — hasn't even tried to address concerns about coverage. Instead, it has all been about costs, which Republicans insist (wrongly) can be dramatically reduced by a policy of, you guessed it, deregulation and tax cuts.