Reconciliation: How the Democrats Can Run the Table
Congressional Democrats will take office in January with the broadest mandate since the post-Watergate midterms in 1974—twice the popular-vote margin the Contract-with-America Republicans won in 1994. The work begins with dismantling most of what Donald Trump and his corrupt, incompetent administration have done over the past two years. Much of what Trump wrought came through his One Big Beautiful (sic)… Continue reading
Treasury’s New Program Mixes Sound Economics and Wishful Thinking
The administration’s new program to wring the toxic assets out of the banking system is a huge bet, which, like most of the previous reforms for the current crisis, is based equally on sound economics and a good dose of wishful thinking. The truth is, it couldn’t be otherwise: We’ve never experienced this kind of crisis before, so we cannot…Continue reading
Anticipating Inflation Now Can Save Taxpayers $50-$70 Billion
The Federal Reserve yesterday announced $725 billion in new purchases of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac securities to hold up housing finance, along with plans to buy $300 billion in Treasury securities. Before this latest program, the Fed was already running the most expansionary modern monetary policy since the Weimar Republic. On top of $2 trillion in guarantees for a…Continue reading
Why This is No Traditional Recession
The leaders of the Republican Party (and plenty of their followers) continue on their strange path of denying the most basic economic logic in the midst of economic crisis and opposing whatever the President says or does. Happily, the Obama administration knows economics, and they seem to generally know themselves. Yet, they may still overestimate the extent of their powers,…Continue reading
The Denial and Anger Inside GOP Economic Policy
The leaders of the Republican Party, reeling from their painful string of defeats, seem stuck in two of the classic stages of grief, denial and anger. This week, Rush Limbaugh replaced Bobby Jindal as the leading and most colorful example. Limbaugh may seem like too easy a target, since talk radio always tends towards hyperbole. Nonetheless, the essence of the…Continue reading
The Economic Logic in the President’s Speech to Congress
President Obama superb address Tuesday night had an underlying, unifying logic which some may have missed, but which hopefully readers of this will recognize. First, on the financial and economic crisis, he embraced the three basic steps we have urged since last September: On top of a stimulus aimed at long-term investments and helping the states — that’s now done…Continue reading
Where the Administration’s Plan for the Housing Crisis Could Fall…
The President today announced a plan to cut foreclosures and reboot new mortgage financings, at least when the economy shows signs of new life. The fact of offering a plan is an advance, given that Bush and his people did nothing and proposed nothing, even as the crisis reached critical mass. As we have written here since the crisis first…Continue reading
The Impact of the Great Recession on Trade
The new trade data out today show, unhappily, that the surest way to drive down our trade deficit is a deep recession that cuts into the money Americans have to buy imports. In December, the trade imbalance fell to less than $40 billion, a 35 percent drop from its $62 billion level last July. (It’s all seasonally-adjusted.) The last time…Continue reading
Shedding Light on the Stimulus Package
While the chorus of complaints about President Obama’s spending and tax package was dispiritingly predictable, the post-partisan surprise is that its basic structure is evolving to just about where it should be. The legislative process is adding its normal quotient of special interest subsidies on both the spending and tax sides — think of it as a “congressional tax,†because…Continue reading