SCOTT SUMNER: The Last 6 Months Have Been A Total Disaster For Modern Liberalism

Scott Sumner is one of the pre-eminent advocates of the idea that the Fed should engage in Nominal GDP targeting, as a way of getting us out of the crisis now and smoothing economic cycles in the future.

But while he is a big advocate of Fed easing, he considers himself to be a conservative (despite the fact that many on the right these days are associated with gold and hard money). And in recent post (via @noahpinion) he argues that the last six months have actually been a disaster for a lot of modern liberal ideas.

He cites six reasons for this.

We summarize in bullets:

Despite the sequester, the economy has been doing fine, which undermines how big of a deal "austerity" is.The popular left-wing view that you need fiscal stimulus at the "zero lower bound" has been undermined by Japan, where the Bank of Japan is succeeding in easing.An Oregon study showed that Medicaid expansion does not improved health outcomes.Another study showed that giving poor students computers doesn't help education outcomes.The IRS scandal.The left has been adopting Herbert Hoover's arguments that despite the weak economy under Obama, things could have been worse.

Sumner's bottom line: Rather than crowing about how they were "right", liberals like Krugman should show more humility.

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