Re: The Same Old Recovery

In the post below, I was not claiming that there is something new to Barack Obama’s political calculation or policy argument for using the financial crisis as an opportunity or reason to remake the economy for the long-term. I have written about this approach a bunch of times. What I was commenting on was a political tactic, and more specifically the repurposed use of a particular word. The post was about debate framing, about how it’s important to be careful about the words we use, especially when the claims are as sweeping as “this budget is inseparable from this recovery.” Unless we are clear about what words like “recovery” mean–that is, not just a end to the current recession–the debate becomes awfully muddy, and it can begin to seem like worries over CBO’s mid-range economic projections have no more economic merit than opposition to short-term stimulus spending over deficit concerns. (More on the differences here.) These are different questions that should be considered differently.