"Unserious People" by Paul Krugman

"Now that’s pathetic. Via Steve Benen,* Eric Cantor is calling on the public to “vote” on spending cuts — like eliminating $1 million, that’s right, $1 million — in HUD dissertation grants. Because nothing does more to ensure that taxpayer money is well spent than making sure that nobody actually studies what works and what doesn’t. As Benen points out, however, the real story here is that the sums involved are ludicrously trivial; eliminating everything on Cantor’s list would amount to a rounding error on federal spending. Meanwhile, of, course, the GOP went wild against real efforts to control spending, crying “death panels.” The truth is that it has always been like this. Ever since Reagan, the conservative approach has been to talk about the need for smaller government, but refuse to offer any serious proposals for spending cuts, pretending instead that there are large sums being wasted on things nobody wants."

- http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/