Paul Krugman: The NY Times News Pages Sure Do Stink Today

On his New York Times blog, Paul Krugman attacks a story on Paul Ryan in the news pages of the New York Times:

Oy. So the Times has a profile of Paul Ryan, sort of — you’ll notice that there is hardly any information about what’s actually in his plan. What we get is:

Paul Krugman, the New York Times Op-Ed columnist, recently derided Mr. Ryan as a “flimflam man,” arguing that the tax cuts in his plan would ultimately make the debt worse.

Is that remotely an adequate summary of what I said? I don’t think so. And notice, by the way, that the tax cut problem is implicitly presented as some kind of long-run issue, when the reality is that it turns the plan into a deficit-increasing venture from day one.

Krugman is right. That isn't an adequate summary of what he said. Krugman's most serious charge was his accusation that Ryan intentionally chose not to have the CBO score his plan in order to fudge the numbers.

Krugman's claim was, of course, false. Scoring revenue is the job of the Joint Committee on Taxation. When Krugman's ignorance on this matter was exposed, he said Ryan was still guilty of acting in bad faith by failing, when he had the opportunity, to have the JCT score his plan. This accusation was also false. Ryan told THE WEEKLY STANDARD that he asked JCT to score his plan, but it was too busy to fulfill his request.

Krugman doesn't specifically defend this attack on Ryan's integrity, but still manages to accuse Ryan of being a dishonest person:

So what kind of guy is [Ryan]? Based on his plan (and, since my article, on the dust clouds he’s been throwing up in an attempt to confuse the issue), he’s the kind of guy with whom you can’t have an honest discussion.

"The kind of guy with whom you can't have an honest discussion"? Sounds like a certain New York Times columnist.