Blinder On Stimulus

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304765304577478561041473358.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

***************
"Example is not the main thing in influencing others ... it is the only thing." (Albert Schweitzer)
***************

Alan Blinder is an economics professor at Princeton and has served as Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve. In his article published last night, he suggests that, with legions of construction workers remaining unemployed while we all drive over roads and bridges that need repair, just does not make sense.

He's right but we appear to have a "political economics" (my term) dividing line between the Democrats who want to help state and local governments maintain their level of spending (which has dropped 6.4% since its 2008 peak). According to Blinder, most Republicans reject this idea "...even when it saves the jobs of teachers, fire fighters and police officers."

Blinder has some solid ideas about what to do about this problem that he hopes will avoid "partisan ideology."

One of those ideas is on budget policy: "...we need a two-pronged fiscal package. In the near term, we need modest stimulus, focused tightly on creating jobs. But that stimulus should be paired with a vastly larger dose of long run deficit reduction - perhaps ten to twenty times larger than the stimulus - over the ten year budget window.

Blinder's ideas on public investment and education are important and also doable. I strongly recommend reading them. And, Congress should read them too!