Here’s the latest from me. I find this issue really interesting because it encapsulates perfectly the struggle between supply-and demand-side economics. If it passes, or if Obama manages to enact rule changes without going through Congress, it’s a victory for all those demand-side economists who for years have been saying that growing the Middle Class — not the Upper Class — is the only way to true economic prosperity. The UAW’s famed Walter Reuther, whom I mention in the story, once said, walking down a Chrysler assembly line, that his workers were Chrysler’s best customers. He was right — but he was also wrong in that many of the wage and benefit structures he negotiated are what helped drag down the Big Three. Balancing this tension will be one of Obama’s first big economic challenges.
Update:
Clearly, Scherer and I both need to get lives as we’re both on “vacation.” I didn’t see his insightful post until I’d already had mine up. It’s not really a cross-post, though, as my story focuses on the battle of EFCA and his details the war-as-waged-thus-far, which, as he points out, has been pretty much a rout of the GOP.