Mineral, Virginia, where yesterday’s earthquake originated, just so happens to be in Eric Cantor’s district. Eric Cantor just so happens to get gotcha’d every time a disaster happens and the media starts looking for budget cuts that look short-sighted from the view inside the rubble. He’s figured out how to handle this:
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor assured his constituents on Wednesday that Congress “will find the monies” to assist earthquake victims in Mineral, Virginia - but the Republican lawmaker noted that “those monies will be offset with appropriate savings or cost-cutting elsewhere.”
One factor that’s been misunderstood in today’s weird Krugman discussion is whether or not Keynesians think natural disaster = growth. Not necessarily – they tee up the conditions under which government and industry will spend new money. They may even create an environment for temporarily deregulation. You want as much relief as possible, followed by as much commerce as possible.
Cantor’s promising… well, for now, disaster relief that will be funded by cuts somewhere else. This is exactly what Faux Krugman was afraid of.
