Barro, Krugman and Taxes

I recently read the transcript of a discussion between Robert Barro and Paul Krugman moderated by Peter Robinson of the Hoover Institute for the program, Uncommon Knowledge. The episode was titled, Dubyanomics, but was really a critique of the economic policies, particularly tax policies, of several administrations. It was filmed on January 4, 2004 and can be viewed here. Both economists are at the top of the profession. Barro is often considered a conservative and Krugman is a self proclaimed liberal. He wrote a book titled, The Conscience of a Liberal.

I went through the transcript in an attempt to objectively measure their opinions about topics covered in the transcript. My score is shown below.

Action	Barro	Krugman
Credits Markets	2	2
Blames Markets	0	0
Credits Reagan	5	2
Blames Reagan	0	1*
Credits Clinton	2	1
Blames Clinton	0	0
Credits Bush (W)	2	0
Blames Bush (W)	4	4
Credits Fed	2	2
Blames Fed	0	0

Overall, Barro seemed more willing to criticize conservatives and praise liberals than Krugman to criticize liberals and praise conservatives. Barro made seven positive and four negative statements about Republicans, and two positive statements about Democrats. Krugman made two positive and five negative statements Repulicans and one positive statement about Democrats.

In particular, Krugman was generally positive about the Reagan administration, but said that markets were more responsible for the good economic performance during the Reagan years than tax policy. Barro believes that the tax cuts successfully encouraged investment and growth and set the stage for growth into the 90s.

Barro was positive about the Clinton administration, particularly about trade policy, but said that markets were largely responsible for the good economic performance during the Clinton years. Krugman was positive about the Clinton administration.

Both economists were tough on the Bush administration. Barro generally liked Bush tax cuts, but offered some criticism, and was generally critical of trade policy. Krugman did not like the Bush administration's tax cuts, but focused most of his criticism of the honesty of the administration's salesmanship of the cuts.

Krugman made a valuable and humorous description about his differences with Barro and Reagan, and it had less to do with their positive views about economics--how the economy works than their normative views--what goals that society should pursue. He said,

But the question [about tax policy] is...a value judgment. That's not about economic growth. That's about do you think that the things that were under pressure should have been under pressure...We have by far the smallest government, smallest revenue base relative to the size of the economy of any advanced country. I'm a conservative. I want to preserve these programs we have and that unfortunately requires more revenue than we're collecting after the Bush tax cuts.