The Federal Deficit: First, do no harm

Here are "Eight Keys To Addressing The Deficit" offered to the White House National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, a presidential advisory body that has the Obama administration has stacked with Wall Street apologists, by AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka,

First, stabilizing the national debt is a means to an end, not an end in itself. "...stabilizing the debt is simply a means to achieve our goal of sustainable, broadly shared prosperity, and we should reject approaches to debt stabilization that take us away from that goal."

Second, we should be honest about will cause deficits over the next ten years: The tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the economic downturn (and not a crisis of entitlement spending generally, caused by the retirement of the Baby Boomers).

Third, premature withdrawal of economic stimulus threatens to throw the global economy into a double-dip recession, or worse. "By withdrawing economic stimulus, we run the risk not only of prolonging the jobs crisis for several more years, but also of bringing about a “double-dip” recession—or even what Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman calls 'a third Depression.'”

Fourth, stronger economic growth, job growth, and wage growth are needed to stabilize the debt. "...[W]e must have a job-centered approach to stabilizing the national debt, which would bring us closer to our goal of sustainable, broadly shared prosperity."

Fifth, Wall Street should pay to build a 21st century infrastructure that will lead to long-term economic growth by investing heavily in public infrastructure that has been badly neglected over the past 30 years, not only to roads and bridges but also to airports and air traffic control systems, urban transit, high-speed rail, schools and university facilities, national laboratories, national parks, ‘smart’ electric grids, broadband networks, green generating plants, and health information networks.

We believe it is only fitting to ask Wall Street to pay to rebuild the economy it helped destroy. One way to do that would be through a Financial Speculation Tax (FST) — a tiny 0.05% tax on transactions of stocks, options, futures, credit default swaps, and other derivative instruments. The $100 to $300 billion in additional tax revenue per year that this tax would generate could be used to fund higher levels of public investment, and the tax itself would curb unproductive speculation that is harmful to the economy.

It would also be fitting to ask the wealthiest Americans who benefited most from the failed economic policies of the past 30 years to pay their fair share for rebuilding the 21st century economy and stabilizing the national debt. For example, a surtax of 1%-5.4% on earnings over $350,000 would raise close to $600 billion over 10 years.

Sixth, efforts to stabilize the national debt should not include approaches that increase income inequality, such as prolonged unemployment, which would permanently cripple the earnings potential of millions of workers, exert downward pressure on workers’ wages, and condemn millions of children to poverty unnecessarily; cuts to Social Security benefits; and cuts to Medicare benefits.

Seventh, we must reduce health care costs even further—without cutting benefits or compromising the quality of care. "Reducing excess cost growth can and should be accomplished without cutting benefits. Approaches that should be considered include (1) Medicare drug price negotiation; (2) easing restrictions on imports of prescription drugs; (3) expanding proven Medicare payment and delivery reforms; and (4) offering the choice of a public health insurance plan option that would offer premiums 10% below private insurance and would reportedly reduce the federal deficit by $110 billion over 10 years."

Eighth, Social Security benefits are not the problem and must not be cut. "In fact, Social Security should be strengthened to compensate for the decline of traditional pensions and for the stock market losses of retirement savings plans. Social Security benefits are about one third lower than the average of 30 OECD countries.

In the short term, we have a jobs crisis—not a debt crisis. The best way to improve our fiscal situation is through stronger job growth. However, given the massive shortfall of aggregate demand, additional deficit spending is necessary in the short term to bring down unemployment and avert a double dip recession, which would only make deficits worse.

After the jobs crisis is behind us, we will need more tax revenues to pay for the higher levels of public investment in 21st century infrastructure that are necessary to create good jobs, ensure long-term economic growth, and improve our global competitiveness. Additional health reforms will also be necessary to further reduce excess health care cost growth.

Stabilizing the national debt over the long term can be a means of achieving sustainable, broadly shared prosperity. But exaggerated fears of deficits and the debt should not be used as a pretext to increase inequality and thereby repeat the mistakes of the past that brought us to the precipice of global depression.

Drawn from Eight Keys To Addressing The Deficit by Richard Trumka (Campaign for America's Future 2010-06-30).

See, also, commission testimony Dr. Margaret Flowers for Physicians for a National Health Program: "The alternative scenario of a national improved Medicare for All will save lives and save money. National improved Medicare for All will place our nation on the path of becoming one of the best health systems in the world - something of which we can all be proud. This commission has the ability to recommend creating a financially sustainable universal health system. I urge the members of this commission to recommend addressing the deficit through adopting this most popular approach: national improved Medicare for All. Don't cut Medicare. Protect it, improve it and expand it to cover everyone." -- Improve and strengthen Medicare by expanding it to all (PNHP 2010-02-01).

Change Watch: Whaddaya Mean Obama Hasn't Done Anything?

As one quick to point to the gap between Barack Obama's rhetoric and his actions as chief executive (insert the words "Change Watch" in the search box at left for examples), I read with interest John H. Richardson's defense of the president in the November issue of Esquire.  The current conventional wisdom about President Obama, he thinks, was captured by a headline on the recent one-year-anniversary cover of Newsweek: YES HE CAN (BUT HE SURE HASN'T YET). ** Or, as Saturday Night Live had it a few weeks ago, Obama's two biggest accomplishments thus far are "Jack and Squat."

Richardson argues that the prevailing sentiment that Obama hasn't accomplished anything may be the only example of real bipartisanship in America, ignoring that the right is convinced he has spent the last nine months installing an authoritarian communist regime rapidly stripping us of all we hold dear as a free people and the left is afraid he is bent on transferring national wealth and political power to the corporate elite. If the opinion that Obama has done nothing is bipartisan it is so only inside the Beltway and in the corporate media. With varying degrees of accuracy, voters on the right and left are afraid he's done too much.

Richardson's summation of the conventional rap against Obama could have appeared on Impractical Proposals: Obama hasn't exited Iraq, hasn't closed Guantánamo, is getting mired in Afghanistan, hasn't passed health-care reform,  hasn't put people back to work. His obsession with bipartisanship is a sick joke.

"What a failure! What a splash of cold water in the face of all our bold hopes!"

(If it were really on IP, though, the bill of complaints would probably include references to the bailout, Timothy Geithner, too big too fail, executive compensation and bonuses, foxes managing chicken coops, the PATRIOT Act, renditions, habeas corpus, warrentless wiretaps, grotesquely large military appropriations, Pakistan, executive orders, signing statements, the media shield law ... but okay, fair enough).

Richardson thinks the conventional wisdom is wrong --  the word he actually uses is "insane." He asks that we "consider the record":

A week before he was sworn in, Obama jammed part two of the bank bailout down the throat of his own party — a $350 billion accomplishment.
Two days after he was sworn in, Obama banned the use of "harsh interrogation" and ordered the closing of Guantánamo.
A day later, Obama reversed George W. Bush's funding cutoff to overseas family planning organizations — saving millions of lives with the stroke of a pen.
Three days after that, Obama gave a green light to the California car-emissions standards that Bush had been blocking for six years — an important step on the road to cleaner air and a cooler planet.
Two weeks after that, Obama signed the stimulus bill — a $787 billion accomplishment.
Ten days after that, Obama formally announced America's withdrawal from Iraq.
A week later — we're in early March now — Obama erased Bush's decision to restrict federal funding for stem-cell research.
In April and June, Obama forced Chrysler and GM into bankruptcy.
In June, Obama reset the tone of our relations with the entire Arab world with a single speech...
Also in June, Obama unveiled the "Cash for Clunkers" program, a "socialist" giveaway that reanimated the corpse of our car industry — leading, for example, to the billion-dollar profit that Ford announced on Monday.

I'm not going to contest each of these assertions, except to say that they are a pretty mixed bag. If you think that the economic meltdown was about foreclosures and jobs not banks and Wall Street, then you may not see the bailouts as achievements, especially in the light of plus 10% unemployment and thousands of foreclosures and business failures. Even if you accept that the bailouts were necessary, you may be irked that the loot could have been handed over in brown paper bags, for all the strings that were attached.

Similarly, if you believe that many of our political problems stem from the unconstitutional transfer of power from the legislature to the executive, even unarguably good outcomes, such as the changes to stem cell research and family planning policies, can be seen as doing further harm to democratic practice if they are secured by executive fiat.

And a "withdrawal" from Iraq that leaves "enduring" military bases, tens of thousands of military trainers and advisers, and an army of private contractors is no withdrawal at all.

Richardson continues with tips of the hat to "Sonia Sotomeyer, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the order to release the torture memos" -- what about the photos?, "...charter schools, his $288 billion tax cut, and the end of Bush's war on medical marijuana. Or the minor fact that he seems" -- I'm trying to stay out of Richardson's way here -- "to have — with Bush's help, it must be said — stopped the financial collapse, revived the credit markets, and nudged the economy toward 3.5 percent growth in the last quarter."

Richardson feels safe in predicting that President Obama is now a month or two from accomplishing "the awesome and seemingly impossible task of passing health-care reform." It remains to be seen, of course, whether the package that finally emerges from negotiations between the House and Senate is anything that can be described fairly as affordable and universal.

And, as they like to say in late-night commercials, that's not all. Richardson also awards Obama points for

Appointing a conservative Bush holdover like Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense.
Appointing an establishment centrist like Leon Panetta at CIA [silencing in the process one of the strongest voices in the Democratic Party calling for CIA accountability for torture].
Appointing a hard-ass like Stanley McChrystal to head up our military forces in Afghanistan, despite McChrystal's dubious involvement in torture and the cover-up of Pat Tillman's death.
Increasing the number of drone attacks on Al Qaeda — more in the last year than all the Bush years combined.
Reinstating, with tweaks, Bush's military tribunal system for Guantánamo prisoners.
Fighting, in another unexpected defense of a controversial Bush policy, lawsuits against the "warrantless wiretapping" program — as recently as this weekend with a decision that a leading civil liberties group called "extremely disappointing."
Sending, way back in February, seventeen thousand more soldiers to Afghanistan. As Fareed Zakaira recently pointed out, this was just three thousand fewer soldiers than Bush sent to Iraq for his famous "surge."

Richardson concludes by setting up a straw man -- the Vital Center -- and then kicking the stuffing out of it. You see, Obama is governing from the middle, so "[b]lame it on the Internet, on partisan politics, on the economic crash, on the legacy of war or Fox News or Michael Moore, but our vital center is getting stiff — and it is starting to stink." Somehow transferring trillions of dollars to the corporate class is a liberal project, or at least so he can seem to be bashing both sides equally Richardson pretends to think so, and expanding the empire is central to the conservative agenda, so both sides are just being churlish when they profess to be disappointed with the way policies that they find important are being addressed.

"What's worse," Richardson says, "both sides are so angry and righteous that they can't even begin to give credit where it is due." I think he's right when he says that conservatives could be more appreciative about that $288 billion tax cut. And you would think the president would be getting a few more kudos from the right for McChrystal and Gates, to say nothing of AfPac and the drones. But to ask "how many liberals choose to be understanding about the practical difficulties of shutting down Guantánamo, achieving equal rights for gays, or tapping Al Qaeda's phones?" is to admit that the left has valid reasons to be unhappy with the Agent of Change. And to wonder "where, on either side, can you find a scrap of humility about the staggeringly complex challenge of Afghanistan and Pakistan? Or a scrap of gratitude at having escaped global financial doom?" is to beg more questions than Alex Trebek.

Our worries about how much Obama has accomplished in the year since we elected him are legitimate, especially considering the magnitude of the problems we face as a nation, and we are not only permitted to express our concerns but, as engaged citizens, we are obligated to express them.

** Richardson points out you "can find other versions of this perspective from Matt Lauer and David Gregory on NBC, from thousands of obnoxious bloggers, even from the hapless governor of New York." 

Clip File: Obama administration expanding military involvement in Latin America

Do we really need to occupy Columbia?

Under a 10-year deal, U.S. military forces will be deployed to seven military bases in Columbia and will have access to Columbia's major international civilian airports, and U.S. personnel and -- and, if Iraq and and Afghanistan experience is any indication, in a recipe for disaster: defense contractors will enjoy diplomatic immunity. Whether the justification is the furthering of our failed War on Drugs or to intervene in the civil war between Columbia's right-wing government and left-wing rebel groups, is the expansion of American military reach what Americans had in mind when they voted for change in 2008?

The rest of the story: New row over Colombia-US accord (BBC News 2009-12-05)

See, also: US-Colombia base deal 'this week' (BBC News 2009-10-27)

Clip File: The West’s 21st Century War in Afghanistan Risks Regional Conflagration

"Today we focus on Afghanistan, but the battle is broader. Every nation has a choice to make. In this conflict, there is no neutral ground..." -- President George W. Bush, announcing the attack against Afghanistan on October 7, 2001

On October 7 the United States’ and NATO’s war in Afghanistan entered its ninth year. The escalating conflict has over the past year become indistinguishable from military operations in neighboring Pakistan where the U.S. and NATO have tripled deadly drone missile attacks and the Pakistani army has launched large-scale offensives that have displaced over 3 million civilians in the Northwest Frontier Province and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, with the province of Baluchistan the next battle zone.

On September 29 the U.S. conducted four drone attacks in Pakistan’s North Waziristan Agency in twenty four hours and during the past year has fired over 60 missiles into the area causing more than 550 deaths.

Three days later the Pentagon announced 72 more American military deaths in the fifteen-nation Operation Enduring Freedom, Greater Afghan War theater – Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Cuba (Guantanamo Bay Naval Base), Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, the Philippines, the Seychelles, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Yemen – bringing the official total to 774.

The U.S. Department of Defense and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) acknowledge that so far this year 406 foreign soldiers have been killed, the bulk of which, 240, are American.

On the eight anniversary of the beginning of the war, however, an authoritative Russian news source estimated that overall “The United States has…lost 1,500 servicemen, while its allies have lost several hundred.”

The rest of the story: Afghanistan: West’s 21st Century War Risks Regional Conflagration by Rick Rozoff (Stop NATO 2009-10-12)

Clip File: More Collateral Damage from the Siegelman Case

This is old news, but like the undead, the policies of the Bush administration have a brutal afterlife.

"...During Bush's tenure, the Justice Department also became politicized to an unprecedented degree.

"One of the most visible among the hundreds of political prosecutions was former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. A Democrat and the only Alabamian to have served in all four of the top state elected positions, he was a choice target of Karl Rove. After several unsuccessful attempts, Gov. Siegelman was convicted of corruption and sentenced to prison. He is presently out as he awaits his appeal. Ninety-one former US Attorneys of both parties have asked President Obama, AG Holder and DOJ to reexamine Siegelman's case....

"Tamarah Grimes was a paralegal working with the prosecution in the case against Don Siegelman. She contacted House Judiciary Committee Chairman Conyers and the DOJ about the prosecutorial misconduct of Alabama US Attorney Leura Canary and her team. For her pains, Grimes was chastised, intimidated, and ultimately fired, her reputation trashed. To add insult to injury, she was denied health insurance and they're trying to rescind her unemployment benefits.

"This is particularly grievous for Grimes because she was the sole breadwinner in her household and her health insurance policy covered her disabled son. Grimes was terminated just eight days after sending a letter to AG Holder, laying out her concerns about the Siegelman case. Her firing will surely have a stifling effect on any other DOJ employees contemplating similar actions. Unemployed and uninsured, she is on the brink of financial ruin. Tamarah may be bloodied but she is also unbowed. She seeks no one's pity."

No doubt Rep. Conyers is looking into Tamarah Grimes predicament and Siegelman's case. How about AG Holder? Has anyone apprised Pres. Obama of what is happening on his watch? How long will this farce be allowed to run?

The rest of the story: More Collateral Damage from the Siegelman Case – Talking with DOJ Whistleblower, Tamarah Grimes by Joan Brunwasser (OpEdNews 2009-10-08).

Further reading: CBS: More Prosecutorial Misconduct in Siegelman Case by Scott Horton (Harper's 2009-02-24)
The Siegelman Case (The New York Times 2009-04-25)
Prosecutors Resort to Fabrications in Siegelman Case (Legal Schnauzer 2009-09-01)
Whistle-Blower Claims in Siegelman Case Unfounded, Office Says by Stephanie Woodrow (MainJustice 2009-10-05)

The White House: Politics vs Policy

When the inevitable moment comes and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel is booted up to senior adviser status, Obama should bring on Howard Dean. Dean has extensive administrative experience, having been both a six-term state governor and the successful manager of a national party. Plus, he's been right about everything and Emanuel's been wrong. Emanuel has reinforced the president's innate conservatism so forcefully that the incumbent Democratic administration is barely distinguishable from its Republican predecessor. Dean pushed for the 50 state strategy at the time Emanuel was touting the "realism" of concentrating on swing districts, in the process knocking progressives out of primaries to make room for Blue Dogs who "could win" (how's that working out, Rahm?). More recently, Emanuel's "realism" has led him to counsel limiting health care insurance reform while Dean has been the primary champion of the public option. Barack Obama needs to shed Rahm Emanuel, whose habit of putting politics over policy is undermining his presidency. And he should recruit someone like Howard Dean to reignite the passion and idealism that got him elected.

Clip File: Obama should listen to Biden

"Vice President Joseph Biden is emerging as an important voice within the White House on the war in Afghanistan.

"The New York Times reported that during a meeting in the situation room on September 13, Biden urged the president to consider reducing America's troop presence in Afghanistan. Rather than embracing a mission to protect the Afghan population, the U.S., Biden reportedly said, should target al Qaeda cells in the region through special operations forces and targeted missile attacks."

The rest of the story: Obama should listen to Biden by Julian E. Zelizer, professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School.

Change Watch: Obama Keeps Bush Rules On Indefinite Detention

NPR stays on the habeas corpus beat: "The Obama administration has decided not to ask Congress for a new law that would allow terrorism detainees to be held indefinitely — in other words, it'll stay with the rules set up right after the Sept. 11 attacks by the Bush administration. What does this decision say about Obama as president?"

The broadcast: Obama Keeps Bush Rules On Indefinite Detention (NPR 2009-09-26).

Action: Mobilization Against the War October 5

The National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance, a nationwide network of individuals and groups committed to ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and working for the abolition of torture, is calling for a nonviolent action next week at the White House. The organization, utilizing the nonviolent practices and disciplines of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and Dorothy Day, will deliver a petition to President Barack Obama calling for withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Afghanistan, ending the illegal bombing with US drones, including in neighboring Pakistan, and the closing of the Bagram prison and ending indefinite detention and torture.

The letter will also call for the conversion of U.S. resources to life-sustaining uses, including the funding and the rebuilding of Afghanistan's and Iraq's infrastructure and and the provision of medical assistance to Afghans and Iraqis, in addition to poverty reduction programs in the United States and world wide. Finally, the groups are seeking to hold accountable those who have committed war crimes.

The gathering will begin at McPherson Square, 15th and I Streets NW, at 10 a.m. on Monday, October 5th and then silently proceed two and a half blocks to the White House to deliver a document to the president and request a meeting with him. Liz McAlister will speak. Participating will be various affinity groups, such as the Atlantic Life Community, Witness Against Torture, Veterans for Peace, The World Can't Wait, and Activist Response Team (A.R.T.). Other groups fully endorsing the action and participating are Peace Action, Code Pink, The War Resisters' League, Voters for Peace, The Washington Peace Center, and Student Peace Action Network. Participants are asked to wear either a "We Will Not Be Silent" t-shirt or a simple black shirt.

Clip File: FDIC Offers Billions In Guarantees For Buyers Of Failed Banks

Here's a must-read from today's HuffPost:

As the Wall Street Journal reports this morning, in what are called a "loss-share" agreements, buyers of failed banks are getting billions of dollars in government guarantees to snatch up the bank's bad assets. To entice buyers, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is offering to cover around 80 percent of the losses associated with buying a bank. The result, the WSJ points out, is a massive subsidy to the private equity industry, and a huge risk to the American taxpayer.

The rest of the story: "Loss-Share": FDIC Offers Billions In Guarantees For Buyers Of Failed Banks (Huffington Post 2009-08-31)

Change Watch: Do we support democracy or not?

As I said during the campaign, on the foreign policy side, it would make no difference who won. Obama, Clinton, McCain...we would remain in Iraq, expand the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, continue to pursue a program of aggressive militarism (vide, Africom, our scheme to bring peace to Africa by militarizing it), and so on. What was the choice of Biden as veep but a wink and a nod to the military, the intelligence community and the foreign policy establishment that Obama was reliable? The Democrats could be counted on to put a more palatable spin on our activities overseas, but in no way to alter the fundamentals. So it was no surprise that we didn't act aggressively last month to restore the democratically elected president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, after he was driven into exile by a military coup.

...is the Obama administration simply trying to change the appearance of the USA internationally or are they attempting to shift US policy? The response to the Honduran coup seems to indicate the former. They do not want the appearance of the demonic Bush administration, but they are not prepared to support a Honduran administration which is allied with the likes of Venezuelan President Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales. Instead this starts to appear to be a Clintonian solution, i.e., a repetition of President Bill Clinton's approach to the coup people in Haiti in 1994. He-Clinton-was prepared to restore democratically elected President Jean Bertrand Aristide, however he would do so only under certain conditions (one being giving up on his populist economic program and the second being that he was only to serve out the remainder of his term despite the fact that years had been robbed from him). In the Honduran case, a "compromise" might be offered that simply restores President Zelaya but essentially neuters him.

So much for Honduran sovereignty; so much for a different US approach to foreign affairs....

-- The Honduran Coup, the Media and Obama by Bill Fletcher, Jr on Black Commentator

See also, No Justification for Coup by Bertha Oliva (Miami Herald 2009-07-15)

Torture: Democracy cannot survive without accountablity

Attorney General Eric Holder is considering appointing a special prosecutor to investigate whether crimes were committed by Americans who tortured prisoners in the wake of 9/11. It goes without saying that torture is contrary to American values. It is also against the law. In the aftermath of World War Two, at the war crimes trials at Nuremberg, we held the architects and engineers of Nazism responsible for Germany's actions in violation of international law and civilized behavior. Today, justice will not be served equally if only low-level soldiers and security personnel are held accountable for crimes that were planned and executed at the highest levels of government. Holder is getting resistance from within the Obama White House and will need public support if he is to proceed. But it is important that, if he does go ahead, no compromise be struck that allows the appointment of a prosecutor who is prohibited from following the evidence up the chain of command.

Working Assets' CREDO Action has ginned up a petition to help the A.G. stick to his guns:

"Attorney General Holder, it is your duty to uphold the constitution and protect the rule of law. The evidence before you demands that you launch an investigation into possible crimes committed under the Bush administration and to prosecute if warranted. This investigation must not be limited to low-level foot soldiers, but should seek justice at the highest levels. Assign a prosecutor to investigate torture and do not rule out as targets architects of the Bush administration's torture program including former Vice President Dick Cheney and his legal adviser David Addington."

You can sign the petition here.

See, also: Clamor grows over CIA secrets.
Follow up: International Justice Group Takes Aim at Bush Officials (Washington Independent 2009-11-17)

Is A Change Gonna Come?: Obama is taking a big risk with 'business as usual' politics

"'Populist anger' is a condescending label pundits use to suggest an irrational, unruly temperament. But what's really going on is deeper and potentially more forceful. It will not be contained with good rhetoric or symbolic gestures.

"Populism was the highly creative, self-made movement formed by desperate farmers in the late 19th century. It is disparaged in elite circles, but it generated vital ideas that ultimately reshaped government and democracy. We are not there yet, not even close. But the impulse for small-d democracy could be very healthy -- if the political system learns to listen and respond." -- "Obama Told Us To Speak Out, But Is He Listening?" by William Greider

Go. Read: The Washington Post, 2009-03-22).

The Depression: They Still Don't Get It

Here is James K. Galbraith, writing in Washington Monthly, on the need to face up to the magnitude of the economic mess we're in (No Return To Normal: Why the economic crisis, and its solution, are bigger than you think):

Barack Obama's presidency began in hope and goodwill, but its test will be its success or failure on the economics. Did the president and his team correctly diagnose the problem? Did they act with sufficient imagination and force? And did they prevail against the political obstacles-and not only that, but also against the procedures and the habits of thought to which official Washington is addicted?

The president has an economic program. But there is, so far, no clear statement of the thinking behind that program, and there may not be one, until the first report of the new Council of Economic Advisers appears next year. We therefore resort to what we know about the economists: the chair of the National Economic Council, Lawrence Summers; the CEA chair, Christina Romer; the budget director, Peter Orszag; and their titular head, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. This is plainly a capable, close-knit group, acting with energy and commitment. Deficiencies of their program cannot, therefore, be blamed on incompetence. Rather, if deficiencies exist, they probably result from their shared background and creed-in short, from the limitations of their ideas.

Go. Read: Washington Monthly (March/April 2009).

See, also: "AIG. Was the Bailout From Hell a Mistake?" (Simon Gornick's There Is No Plan)
"Financial Policy Despair" (Paul Krugman, The New York Times)

Accountability: Change you can track

The latest project of ProPublica (see, Impractical Proposals: Media Watch: Non-Profit Investigative News Effort) is ChangeTracker, a tool that "watches pages on whitehouse.gov, recovery.gov and financialstability.gov so you don’t have to." When the White House adds or deletes anything -- say a blog post or an executive order -- ChangeTracker keeps a log. Changes can be followed by visiting the site, or you can receive updates via rss feed, email, or twitter @changetracker.

Interestingly, the technology that makes this exercise in accountability possible -- Versionista -- is available for free to anyone who wants to keep track of changes on particular websites. ChangeTracker offers a guide on how to create a tracker for any website.

Accountability: Stimulus Watch

StimulusWatch.org was created "to help the new administration keep its pledge to invest stimulus money smartly, and to hold public officials to account for the taxpayer money they spend." At the site, citizens with first-hand knowledge of local "shovel-ready" projects considered eligible for federal grants can rate their efficiency as generators of jobs and economic activity. You can vote on the efficacy of a proposed project, edit its description and the arguments in favor or against, and enter a conversation about it.