Krugman 2005: Religious extremists will try to kill the filibuster. Krugman 2009: Let’s kill the filibuster.

Yeah, plenty of righties are on the flip side of the coin, but that’s all the more reason to post this. Their logic’s been blessed by a bona fide Nobel prize winner.

Any economics Ph.Ds want to try identifying the crucial variable that’s changed in Krugman’s calculus between then and now? 2005:

Yesterday The Washington Post reported on the growing number of pharmacists who, on religious grounds, refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control or morning-after pills. These pharmacists talk of personal belief; but the effect is to undermine laws that make these drugs available. And let me make a prediction: soon, wherever the religious right is strong, many pharmacists will be pressured into denying women legal drugs.

And it won’t stop there. There is a nationwide trend toward “conscience” or “refusal” legislation. Laws in Illinois and Mississippi already allow doctors and other health providers to deny virtually any procedure to any patient. Again, think of how such laws expose doctors to pressure and intimidation.

But the big step by extremists will be an attempt to eliminate the filibuster, so that the courts can be packed with judges less committed to upholding the law than Mr. Greer.

And today:

Now consider what lies ahead. We need fundamental financial reform. We need to deal with climate change. We need to deal with our long-run budget deficit. What are the chances that we can do all that — or, I’m tempted to say, any of it — if doing anything requires 60 votes in a deeply polarized Senate?

Some people will say that it has always been this way, and that we’ve managed so far. But it wasn’t always like this. Yes, there were filibusters in the past — most notably by segregationists trying to block civil rights legislation. But the modern system, in which the minority party uses the threat of a filibuster to block every bill it doesn’t like, is a recent creation…

Back in the mid-1990s two senators — Tom Harkin and, believe it or not, Joe Lieberman — introduced a bill to reform Senate procedures. (Management wants me to make it clear that in my last column I wasn’t endorsing inappropriate threats against Mr. Lieberman.) Sixty votes would still be needed to end a filibuster at the beginning of debate, but if that vote failed, another vote could be held a couple of days later requiring only 57 senators, then another, and eventually a simple majority could end debate. Mr. Harkin says that he’s considering reintroducing that proposal, and he should.

His defense, I assume, will be that it was only the threat of “extremism” that led him to defend the filibuster back in the day, which is lame. If you lift this roadblock, by definition you’re going to get more “extreme” legislation: An ObamaCare bill with all the socialistic public-option trimmings in the current case, and maybe massive social security reform and a few Miguel Estradas on the bench down the line when the GOP retakes Congress. Endorsing the former necessarily means endorsing the latter, which of course Krugman is unwilling to do. I actually agree with him that the filibuster’s been abused insofar as the 60-vote standard operates as a de facto constitutional amendment to the principle of majority rule, but the Harkin/Lieberman compromise he describes is simply a timewaster. If we’re going to end the 60-vote threshold, let’s end it cleanly. Wait for some year where there’s a significant chance that the Senate elections will produce a closely divided body such that it’s impossible to know in advance who’ll control the chamber. Both sides would then have some incentive to nuke the filibuster, provided it only went into effect after the new Congress was sworn in. It’s a pure bet for each, but that’s the only way this is ever going to happen.

Exit question: Is it really true that ObamaCare would pass breezily under simple majority rule? Presumably all the Blue Dogs who are now voting yes — Bayh, Lincoln, Pryor, Lieberman, Nelson, Landrieu, and maybe a few others — would instantly flip to no since their votes would no longer be needed. Reid might still have a two or three-vote cushion given the Dems’ huge majority, but that huge majority is a historical rarity; as the Dems’ advantage shrinks in years going forward, the cushion would disappear until they ended up haggling over the 50th vote the way they’re now haggling over the 60th. Which isn’t to say there’s no difference — obviously, simple majority rule is easier to achieve — but it’s not a panacea either.

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