There's dumb, there's dumber and then there's the Terminally Deluded, wherein Rand Paul think's he "smarter" than Paul Krugman. Nobel Prize Winner in Economics Paul Krugman.

Yeah, really.



During ABC's This Week on Sunday, Paul skeptically asked Krugman why he believed the public sector was currently struggling and if there were fewer government employees under President Obama than under President Bush. Krugman quickly retorted, “that is a fact” and later posted a chart on his column to back up the claim. “Federal employees in the federal government is enormously bigger under Obama,” Paul continued. “And he is disingenuous, for an allegedly smart man, he is disingenuous, playing games and ought to be ashamed of himself… We have a much bigger government and it is disingenuous, if not dishonest, for Krugman to try to say otherwise.”

“He is flat out wrong,” the Kentucky senator said. “Let me tell you why he is wrong and then you can respond. Federal employment has gone up 140,000. It is just a fact. He is talking about federal and state employment, so he is playing games with numbers. President Obama is not in charge of the government of Virginia or the government of New York, so teachers have been reduced at the state level.”

That would be this chart.To which Rand says "He's Flat out Wrong."No, but President Obama did proposeto send money to the States to help, and Republicans said "

Also if you say "Government" it's not a trick to interpret that as "All Government Jobs", because that's what they are, States have Governments too. It's obtuse in the extreme for Paul to pretend he only meant "Federal Government Jobs" when that wasn't what he said, he said "Government Jobs" and Paul gave him the correct answer to that question. They've gone down.

