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Show me the numbers!

Krugman claims in today’s NYT:

What’s wrong with the prescription of spending cuts as the remedy for Europe’s ills? One answer is that the confidence fairy doesn’t exist — that is, claims that slashing government spending would somehow encourage consumers and businesses to spend more have been overwhelmingly refuted by the experience of the past two years. So spending cuts in a depressed economy just make the depression deeper.

So the idea that “slashing government spending” might be healthy for an overly indebted economy has been “overwhelmingly refuted” by the experience of the past two years.

Show me the numbers, Paul. Come on. Show me the data that proves the first part of your claim, that government spending has been “slashed.” (There’s that word, and claim, again.)

This should be easy. Just show me the data. Please.

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