Jared Bernstein -- On the Economy

[phantom power]

I continue to be very skeptical of this philosophy about "needing consensus" to make progress. I think it's one reason for the "narrow debate" he wants to widen. I think they'd do better if they got their FDR "I welcome their hatred" freak on.

But that’s not the argument we’re having. Conservatives essentially argue we can have it all for less: get government “out-of-the-way” and health care, job growth, investment, upward mobility, would be enhanced, not diminished. These claims are difficult to defend using facts—as opposed to assertion—and part of this blog will be devoted to sorting through them.

Democrats lately seemed to be trapped in a position that amounts to: “sure, we have to cut and shrink—just not as much as the other guys want.”

There’s got to be a better way—a way to widen this terribly narrow debate.

Why couldn’t I do more to help from the inside? One reason is that in order to move the ball forward, you need consensus, and in today’s politics, that is particularly elusive. And that makes it especially hard to call out people and their arguments. There’s a reason why Jon Stewart can speak truths that highly-placed elected officials cannot. When you’re on the inside at a time like this, you’re constantly balancing the risk of losing the support of people you need to lead.

So, not meaning to be at all grandiose, I’m going to try to do my part to improve the debate from the outside, to make sense out of the arguments, to go for truth over truthiness, to elevate the facts of the case in a way that’s respectful to all sides of the case. It’s also my hope that by dint of my recent experience at the White House, I can imbue this blog with a sense of political realism that’s sometimes missing in critical commentary.

http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/welcome/