From The Economist, there is an entire symposium. Here is my bit and it closes as follows:
I thought these sentences from Mrs Romer’s piece were excellent: "As
someone who has written somewhat critically of the short-sightedness of
policymakers in the late 1930s, I feel new humility. I can see that the
pressure they were under was probably enormous."
That's the
bottom line. With Mrs Romer's piece we have one of the world’s great
macroeconomists, yet not quite being allowed to play that role.
In part I was referring to this:
I am least happy with the sentence: "By coupling the expansion of
coverage with reforms that significantly slow the growth of health-care
costs, we can dramatically improve the long-run fiscal situation
without tightening prematurely." So far we have every reason to believe
that Congress–and indirectly the American voter–will not allow the
growth of health-care costs to be slowed. Mrs Romer's sentence could
have been rewritten: "Congress is unlikely to significantly slow the
growth of health-care costs, so we cannot dramatically improve the
long-run fiscal situation without tightening prematurely."
If you're wondering, all that talk of "Mrs Romer" is a Britishism added by The Economist (should I have offered her a "lovely biscuit" as well?). I get a kick out of seeing myself having "written" that, but being from New Jersey what I sent in was simply "Romer"; next in line would have been "Professor Romer," "Ms. Romer," or even "Mrs. Romer."
“being from New Jersey”: my God, will you confess to anything?
Student, read my earlier posts on this topic, you are mischaracterizing my views…
You are from New Jersey! Crap. I’ve always reserved the right to hate one group and I chose Jerseyans. Cognitive dissonance.
Andrew, that’s one of the funniest comments of all time. The one about Jerseyans is interesting, too. Jajaja, just kidding about which one I’m kidding about. Payce.
Isn’t “Mrs Romer” more concise than “the great macroeconomist Romer” to distinguish her from “Mr Romer” and presumably “the lesser macroeconomist Romer”?
Whatever they tinker with, it’s not going to be enough. It’s not the garden variety psychological panic. The problem is how to pay back the debts in the future? The budgets have to balance eventually. We are not going to snap back to wonderful growth. We weren’t responsible when the sun was shining. All that money we could have used to improve productivity, we built hot tubs with it. There is not so much slack in the pre-existing economy because commodity prices can snap back. And unlike the 40′s, we will emerge (we pray) with global competitors intact. We need enough idle resources to remake the economy on more sustainable footing. And, we need more quality immigration. If 5 years ago you would have said we are going to build an over-capacity of housing and then bring in more educated immigrants, that would have been a reasonable project. People will come here because they can be more productive.
For instance I would have been pleased to read that the Obama administration will not, beyond the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, propose any new tax increases. Such a pledge would follow from Mrs Romer’s substantive analysis but it is not made in her piece.
Years ago, Obama proposed a selective carbon tax, the tax that isn’t called a tax, which would pay for health care, energy policy, education policy, and some offsets to the middle class to fix AMT and for the short term higher cost of energy.
Obama has pulled back from ending the tax cuts early, letting the Republican’s CBO scoring gimmick give him the hammer to drive Republican compromise circa 2010.
My question is “when will someone explain why the Clinton tax hikes didn’t cause the predicted recession, and why the 2001, 2003, 2006, and 2008 tax cuts failed to produce the recovery and growth they were supposed to deliver?”
Why was growth in the 90s, 80s, 60s, and even while Carter was president, so much greater than since 2001 if lower taxes are so great for growth?
thanks
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