A belated link for my Sunday column: Confessions of a Columnist:https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/30/opinion/confessions-of-a-columnist.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Fross-douthat&action=click&contentCollection=opinion®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection&_r=0 …
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A column like this, expressing regret for the emphasis I placed on deficits in the early-to-mid Obama years, naturally raises the question of what I should have been writing instead.
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It deserves a longer answer, but my short, provisional one is that I should have written much more about payroll-tax-cut stimulus and considered more radical ideas for helping underwater homeowners (yes, yes, the very idea that inspired the Santelli rant).
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I would still have criticized the stimulus design and the subsequent Dem pivot from jobs to health care and cap-and-trade -- but not, as I did in this column, on the grounds that they should have pivoted to entitlement reform instead:http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/12/opinion/the-presidents-do-over.html …
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Instead I should have urged them not to pivot -- to improve on the stimulus/bailout combination with more efforts to save jobs/goose hiring (incl. a corporate cut to woo GOP senators) and stabilize middle/working class wealth.
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I did argue, quite often, that the pivot to new entitlement building before the economy had improved was a mistake. Still think that was right. But all my alternative ideas were conceived within the assumption of a "fiscal straitjacket" -- as here:http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/11/opinion/11douthat.html …
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They shouldn't have been. Not that my influence mattered much (I was a novice columnist with no economic expertise) but I still regret it. /Endsolipsism
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No, not quite done: I definitely should have written more about monetary policy. Or just block-quoted
@RameshPonnuru on market monetarism every few weeks. That was a case where my lack of technical expertise held me back from trying to popularize a compelling position.4 replies 0 retweets 17 likesShow this thread
do you think you can popularize it now?
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