Hypocrisy and Republican are synonymous.
I made the mistake of reading an op-ed by Paul Krugman, Nobel Laureate professor and world-renowned economist.
He always gets me fired up.
Dr.
Krugman knows what he's talking about, and his insights always ring true for me.
Let's begin by speaking about Dr.
Paul Krugman's credentials and his credibility: 1.
He began writing for The New York Times in 1999.
2.
He is a professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University (where Albert Einstein resided for much of his American life).
3.
Mr.
Krugman received a B.
A.
from Yale University in 1974 and a Ph.
D.
from MIT in 1977.
4.
He has been a professor at Yale, MIT and Stanford.
He had the prestigious honor of becoming the Ford International Professor of Economics at MIT.
5.
Professor Krugman has written or edited 20 books and more than 200 papers.
6.
He has won a staggering amount of academic awards based largely on his work in international trade and finance.
7.
Paul's current academic research is laser-focused on economic and currency crises.
8.
During all of this, Dr.
Krugman has been writing for a much broader public audience including the republishing of articles in Pop Internationalism and The Accidental Theorist.
He is also read widely on The Huffington Post.
9.
He is one of the founders of "new trade theory," a major sea change in the rethinking of the theory of international trade.
10.
On October 13, 2008, Paul Krugman won the Nobel Prize in Economics.
He has been a fierce critic of economic policy in the United States for years.
He also writes "The Conscience of a Liberal" blog for The New York Times.
Prolific is an understatement.
In his most recent op-ed, he chastises the brazen hypocrisy of Republicans such as Newt Gingrich and John Goodman for their sudden embrace of Medicare, a program Republicans have hated since the days of Ronald Reagan.
They are denouncing cuts to Medicare while spreading the "death panel" mantra like a landscaper spreads manure.
In addition, while seeming to oppose any cuts to Medicare, Republicans have secretly stashed $650 billion in cuts to the program with the goal of totally dismantling it.
These cuts are $250 billion more than the Democrats are proposing: total unabashed Republican farce and deceit of the highest order.
The GOP "Roadmap to America's Future," the budget plan recently released by Representative Paul Ryan, the ranking Republican member of the House Budget Committee, is nothing more than a rehash of failed George W.
Bush economic policies.
It even calls for privatization of Social Security.
We've already seen how well privatization has worked for Americans as they lost $5 TRILLION dollars of privatized retirement-replacement plans known as 401k's.
While the Republicans work hard to defeat health care reform and Medicare, they've tried making it look as though they're trying to save it all.
Talk about playing the ultimate shell game.
I will conclude with a quote from Dr.
Paul Krugman: "Republicans who hate Medicare, tried to slash Medicare in the past, and still aim to dismantle the program over time, have been scoring political points by denouncing proposals for modest cost savings - savings that are substantially smaller than the spending cuts buried in their own proposals.
" For Republicans, hypocrisy is king.
That's why I call them the "Republican'ts.
"