This is a couple weeks old, but I didn’t want it to slip through the cracks without being mentioned here. A study in Econ Journal Watch of major American economists and their stated views on budget deficits finds just one whose views change drastically depending upon whom is in residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

You don’t even really have to guess who it is, it’s so obvious.

Yep, Paul Krugman.

Thus, he worried about the deficit as a structural issue in 2003 but not in 2009. The contrast between structural and cyclical deficits provides a potentially valid reason for changing one’s tune on the deficit. However, Krugman’s tune change in “Democrats and the Deficit,” noted above, was not of this nature. It was of a purely partisan nature and occurred in the absence of any emergency in the economy.

To my knowledge Krugman has not addressed his overt partisanship. Until he does so, it is difficult to give him the benefit of the doubt. Krugman has changed his tune in a significant way regarding the budget deficit when the White House has changed party.

No surprise there. The author of the study, Brett Barkley, also notes in passing that Krugman has a “truth” issue.

Krugman’s suggestion that deficits were higher in 2003 and 2004 than they were in the early 1990s is actually false. The deficits in 2003 and 2004 were 3.4% and 3.5% of GDP respectively (CBO Historical Budget Data). In 1990 and 1993 the deficit was 3.9% of GDP. It was 4.5% and 4.7% respectively in 1991 and 1992. [footnote omitted]

Just another reason why Krugman can’t be trusted when politics touch economics.

Or when his mouth is moving.