NYTIMES columnist David Brooks makes an excellent point:
“The financial crisis
exposed foundational problems and meant that we were going to have to live with
a long period of slow growth, as the history of financial crises makes clear.
If Obama had governed
in a way truer to his inauguration, he would have used this winter of
recuperation to address the country’s structural weaknesses. He would have
said: Look, we’re not going to have booming growth soon, but we will use this
period to lay the groundwork for a generation of prosperity — with plans to reform
the tax code, get our long-term entitlement burdens under control, get our
political system working, shift government resources from the affluent elderly
to struggling young families and future growth.
…
But the president got
sucked in by short-term things — the allure of managing the business cycle so
that the economy would boom by re-election time.”
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Also, worth reading:
Also, worth reading:
Long-Term Unemployment Rate and Structural Problems
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WSJ’s David Wessel on US Debt & Deficit Challenges: