Thursday, January 08, 2009

Bartlett Clarifies

... his 1993 Public Interest article, cited below. From a personal email today:

Just to be clear, I think the theoretical case for stimulus is strong and I’ve said so repeatedly. But I also think there are practical obstacles to effective stimulus. I’m not sure if enough thought is being given to the necessity of increasing aggregate spending in the economy and of doing so this year. If the stimulus doesn’t come online until next year it may be worse than too-little-to-late—it may set off a new round of inflation. This problem would be mitigated, however, if Obama combined short-term stimulus with long-term deficit reduction.

Rather than oppose any and all stimulus, which seems to be the conservative line, I think it would make more sense to concentrate on the practical problems inherent in stimulating the economy. The great weakness of liberals, in my mind, has always been that they are too willing to take a theoretical idea and immediately put it into practice, while disregarding any historical evidence showing that it may not work. Conservatives, on the other hand, are too quick to just say “no” to every new idea regardless of its merits.

01/08 02:49 PM