Friday, August 13, 2010

Krugman On Federal Economic Policy

Paul Krugman sums up Washington's economic policy in a single paragraph in yesterday's column:

[W]hatever the reasons, the fact is that the Fed — which is required by statute to promote “maximum employment” — isn’t doing its job. Instead, like the rest of Washington, it’s inventing reasons to dither in the face of mass unemployment. And while the Fed sits there in its self-inflicted paralysis, millions of Americans are losing their jobs, their homes and their hopes for the future.

Paralysis at the Fed

Krugman, of course, was referring to the Federal Reserve, and criticizing his former boss Ben Bernanke. His criticism applies to the entire Obama Administration, however.

No one at the Obama Administration seems interested in doing what needs to be done on anything close to the scale it needs to be done. A $26 billion bill to "save 300,000 jobs" here, a way short of the mark stimulus there, and we should all be falling all over ourselves thanking them for bothering. This latest bit of theatre, of calling Congress back into session to pass a pitifully small supplemental appropriation to save at least a few municipal jobs is just one more example of these Democrats doing the minimum necessary to get a headline.

They will sit by, because they're paid to. That's the conclusion I've come to.


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