GOP Owns This Crappy Economy

Yes, the president's a Democrat—but it's the Republicans who own this economy, writes Paul Krugman in the New York Times. They hammer President Obama's spending, when in fact spending is dropping faster than it has since just after the Korean War. That means "the Republican electoral strategy is, in effect, a gigantic con game," Krugman notes. "It depends on convincing voters that the bad economy is the result of big-spending policies that President Obama hasn’t followed (in large part because the GOP wouldn’t let him)."

Yet neither Obama nor the media have called out the Republicans as they push policies that have already failed—as proven by continuing weak economic figures. "We have already seen the Republican economic future—and it doesn’t work," Krugman writes. It's time for President Obama to follow Harry Truman's lead and "run against the 'do-nothing' Republican Congress that has, in reality, blocked proposals—for tax cuts as well as more spending—that would have made 2012 a much better year than it’s turning out to be." Click through for Krugman's full column. (More Paul Krugman stories.)