Or Greenspan is a Fascist. Or a Marxist. Or whatever Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, et al., will come up with to describe his sudden change of heart on the Bush Tax Cuts:
LONDON (CNNMoney.com) — Former Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan believes Congress should let the tax cuts enacted by President George W. Bush expire for all Americans in order to address the widening deficit, according to a TV interview airing Friday.
“They should follow the law and let them lapse,” Greenspan told Bloomberg TV’s Judy Woodruff.
My how times have changed. Here’s Greenspan from 2
January, 2001:
In a prepared statement he read this morning to the Senate Budget Committee, Greenspan suggested that because of the current budget surplus, a tax reduction would help buttress the nation’s long-term economic health.
“The sequence of upward revisions to the budget surplus projections for several years now has reshaped the choices and opportunities before us,” said Greenspan. Given such a surplus, he added, “it is far better, in my judgment, that the surpluses be lowered by tax reductions than by spending increases.”
This man was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005 by George W. Bush. Somehow I doubt President Obama is going to be quite as grateful for Greenspam now acknowledging the obvious, instead of telling Congress in 20001 what Bush wanted him to say (Tax cuts? Great idea!) so that Greenspan would ensure his reappointment as Chairman of the Federal Reserve.
I wonder if he now thinks groveling at the feet of that walking photo op was worth insuring that the surpluses Clinton generated would turn into the largest deficits in US history.
Oh wait. I forgot. After he left the Fed he went to work for “Paulson & Co. as an adviser on economic issues and monetary policy”, the firm that made billions of dollars betting that the market for collateralized debt obligations (i.e., mortgage backed securities) would collapse.
Paulson & Co. was the Hedge Fund that shorted the infamous ABACUS CDO deal which it created amd that Goldman Sachs marketed. Goldman settled fraud charges brought by with the SEC yesterday in connection with that transaction. Paulson has made billions of dollars for his fund since Greenspan became an economic adviser. I wonder what Greenspan got paid for his “advice,” don’t you?
