Paul Krugman is a Hypocrite

Shocking! Outrageous!

I just heard Paul Krugman, columnist for the New York Times and professor of economics at Princeton, make a brazen hypocrite of himself on the program Hannity & Colmes. This is what he said:

After the Bush tax cuts, given the other burdens, we are just not taking in enough revenue to maintain Social Security and Medicare.

Why is this interesting? Because less than one minute earlier he also said, about the Bush administration:

Oh, well they certainly lie a lot. I mean we can certainly say that they lie an awful lot. Every part of their economic policy has been sold with falsehoods, with things that just aren't true.

Earth to Paul: Social Security and Medicare (except Medicare part B) are funded by payroll taxes, not by general revenues, and the Bush tax cuts did not affect payroll taxes. Funding for Social Security and Medicare (part A) has always been deliberately separate from general revenue. The Bush tax cuts did not affect the revenues for Social Security and Medicare (part A) at all.

Krugman is a professional economist. He knows this. But he seems more interested in attacking the Bush administration than in addressing the serious problems for the future funding of entitlement programs.

UPDATE 2003-10-18 15:17:31 UTC: Also see this.