Krugman - Government not as useless as previously reported.

David Frum is startled by Larry Kudlow’s ignorance about the federal budget; Kudlow imagines that a pay cut for federal employees could have a huge impact on the deficit, when in fact it would be trivial...

The basic picture of the federal government you should have in mind is that it’s essentially a huge insurance company with an army; Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid — all of which spend the great bulk of their funds on making payments, not on administration ... [A] key part of conservative imagery [is] the idea of vast rooms full of government employees doing nothing productive...The fact that it’s not remotely true is irrelevant; they want it to be true, and that’s enough.

---Krugman, 4/8