I hate this brand of "pragmatism".
It is important not to let debates over reform block measures for recovery. Desirable reforms are always worth pursuing—and especially worth pursuing in times when the bounds of the politically possible are widened and thus previously-unattainable but always desirable reforms come within reach. But the policies that aid recovery the most and the fastest are likely to be different from the policies that enact desirable longer-term reforms.
-Brad Delong, wimping out
-Brad Delong, wimping out
F.D.R. conceptualized - was free to conceptualize - his whole program as a matter of resetting the national agenda.
I cannot see why we ought to believe that 'technocrats' should decide what 'reforms' are worth it and which are not, nor reduce 'saving the economy' to a technical exercise.
Afterall, the technocrats did not rescue us from the problems or successfully forestall them, even when in plain sight.
NO EITHER/OR - THEY ARE FULLY LINKED
Obama's agenda for healthcare cost containment and for energy efficiency and so forth should be done promptly. As I've argued below, there is no "better time", later on down the road.
Obama-Biden priorities can form an important part of a 'recovery script'.
Regulatory changes can spur innovation and demand re-investment by companies (whose inefficient assets are in danger of being 'stranded'), all of which are stimulative.
HUGE energy efficiencies are almost a must-have for a non-inflationary recovery (or reduced-inflation or for just plain heightened optimism about growth-with-low-inflation).
Fixing the schools infrastructure is a critical component of the 'next leg' of investment that could invite. (It's also a new 'Southern Strategy', to save the union, frankly.)
