Paul Krugman is pissed off:
He earned his right to groan. Krugman started his complaints that Obama was undershooting even before the Inauguration [clash of the titans…] and hasn’t let up since. Now, Krugman thinks it’s too late:
So here’s my problem: even when people have a clear vision of the problem, they lose their nerve when it comes to proposing solutions that actually address that problem. It’s this kind of diffidence that doomed us to inadequate policies when Obama might have had the ability to get stuff through; and now we’re stuck, with little hope of recovery for many years to come.
Sad as it seems, it looks like Krugman was right all along. I thought Krugman was hitting too hard. I was defending Obama as doing all that he could do given his opposition. But that doesn’t change the fact that Krugman was most likely correct. Had Obama jumped in the deep end with both feet, and succeeded, last night would’ve probably been a very different night. Sigh…
I think the problem was more one of shifting priorities, and Obama wasn’t able to see that’s what he needed to do. He came into office with big plans for big bold initiatives, health care being foremost. He didn’t see how bad the economy was going to get, and he stuck with the mantra that “you can’t fix the economy without fixing health care.” That’s fine, except we were in an emergency situation that really called for triage and life-saving measures before doing major surgery.
So I agree that the efforts on the economy and health care suffered because they were too timid, as Krugman preached all along; but then it got lifted out of that realm and into battlefield crisis mode when triage was needed.
Of course, any number of explanation and preferred solutions might have made a difference. Right now mine it this: Obama couldn’t shift his focus from necessary major surgery to tending to the crisis with appropriate triage and emergency measures — so that he could then do the major surgery.
Excellent point! The inertia of “hope” got him…