Josh Barro's Claims of Fact are Mostly Accurate

Josh Barro's claims of fact are mostly right, but this claim is BS.

Josh Barro wrote

"Liberals don't actually oppose all fiscal austerity. They cheered for the expiration of the Bush tax cuts on the wealthy and mostly shrugged at the end of the payroll tax holiday."


As Jon Chait notes "mostly shrugged" amounts to uh nothing.  Not denouncing one of the moves towards austerity enough to satisfy Barro is not the same as supporting austerity when a Democrat is in the White House and spending like drunken sailors when a Republican is.

I will now google to see what "mostly shrugged" means

Ezra Klein recently sure doesn't claim he shrugged (in a context such that he would be tempted) http://wapo.st/1ayBRDa
"I’m not willing to throw out the idea that raising payroll taxes hurts the economy. But I have to admit that the payroll tax increase hasn’t hurt as much as I expected."

Dylan Matthews "Mark Zandi has argued that payroll tax cuts generate $1.24 of economic activity for every $1 they cost."

This is not a shrug http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/05/anti-stimulus-politics/

nor this https://bitly.com/shorten/
"Politically the best way to get more stimulus is probably extending the payroll tax holiday for workers and "

Brad Plumer didn't shrug http://wapo.st/10Pj0Df

uncontestably ideological DailyKos and David Dayen agree http://bit.ly/13BIy5b


My mom and dad's representative didn't shrug (he's in the leadership) http://wapo.st/SSo6a3

when it come to BS "mostly" is mostly a strong enough weasel word to get away with anything, but Barro's claim does not stand up to googling.

Barro fell for Ballance http://bit.ly/18OV8nl


(which is remarkable enough as he was a conservative recently).