Poor Paul Krugman. An Internet troll stole the economist and New York Times columnist’s identity this week and posted this comment on the Internet after Tuesday’s earthquake in Washington: “People on twitter might be joking, but in all seriousness, we would see a bigger boost in spending and hence economic growth if the earthquake had done more damage.” Krugman didn’t say that, but he has made the same fallacious argument so many times that neither his detractors nor his online fans could tell immediately that it wasn’t him. Days after the 9/11 terror attacks, Krugman actually did write that the attack “could even do some economic good.” More recently, he wrote this of the Japanese nuclear disaster: “And yes, this does mean that the nuclear catastrophe could end up being expansionary, if not for Japan then at least for the world as a whole.”

These true Krugman quotations express a Keynesian orthodoxy that reigns in the White House today. Such thinking inspired the “Cash for Clunkers” program, which paid citizens to participate in economic sabotage by destroying perfectly good cars. Through President Obama’s stimulus package, this theory drove the government to subsidize products no one wants (“green” energy and high-speed rail) and to solve problems that don’t exist, all in the name of creating make-work jobs that don’t meet any real market demand.