Can We Cut the Crap on Robert Rubin and Deficit Reduction

Robert Rubin is best known as the man who pocketed more than $100 million as a top Citigroup honcho as it played a central role in pumping up the housing bubble that sank the economy. However, because of the incompetence (corruption?) of the Washington media, he is much better known as a great hero of economic policy.

Ezra Klein helps to feed this myth when he tells us of the great virtue of deficit reduction in the Clinton years.

"Back in the 1990s, we knew why we feared deficits. They rais...