Matt Yglesias

11 Responses to “Good News at the ONDCP”

1. max Says:
   March 21st, 2009 at 10:23 am

   the more frustrating it becomes to realize how it could all easily be brought down by poor handling of the banking crisis.

   ‘it could all easily be brought down’ s/b ‘it is all being brought down’

   And then in January 2011, we will have a Republican majority.

   max
   ['It's the Rubinites, stupid.']

2. JMG Says:
   March 21st, 2009 at 10:46 am

   Too late, Matt! The banking crisis has already ended the Obama administration through an excess of conventional wisdom.
   No health care reform. Cap and trade? Don’t make me laugh. All there will be is financial collapse when Congress, rightly, refuses to pay the trillions the administration needs to make their cockamamie plan operative.

3. joe from Lowell Says:
   March 21st, 2009 at 10:48 am

   Oh, look, Obama’s doomed.

   Again.

4. Блог генерала Says:
   March 21st, 2009 at 11:28 am

   цитаты за сегодня…

   Harold Pollack gives us the good news about the new team at the Office of National Drug Control[...]…

5. fostert Says:
   March 21st, 2009 at 11:41 am

   I’m happy to live in a place where this is not an issue. Where I live, you can get into trouble if your dog gets loose too often, but when the cops come to your door and you have a quarter pound of pot laying on the table, they couldn’t care less. But they will give you a fine for your dog.

6. Rich in PA Says:
   March 21st, 2009 at 11:51 am

   I assume the Geithner plan is going to work, and that Obama has enough confidence in both the plan and in his political capital that he’s willing to ride out the criticisms until there is obvious evidence that the plan works. I hate the plan for ethical reasons, and because it squanders an opportunity to remake our diseased capitalism, but in a rules-of-the-game way I think it will work. I don’t see how cap-and-trade (which I’m not fond of–I’m a straight regulationist when it comes to emissions) or drug policy or anything else would suffer during an interregnum of sniping at the bank bailout; you could just as plausibly argue that hullaballoo about the bailout will distract reflexive oppositionists from focusing on those other things, leaving Obama’s competent appointees to do their business. I can see how health care reform would be a casualty, but I don’t think it had an opening anyway (Obama was, let’s face it, the major Democrat least committed to major reform) and we can count of deflation plus the threat of major reform to depress costs for at least a couple of years.

7. Jasper Says:
   March 21st, 2009 at 12:25 pm

   All there will be is financial collapse when Congress, rightly, refuses to pay the trillions the administration needs to make their cockamamie plan operative.

   I dobut it. Most Democrats aren’t stupid enough to refuse to come up with the extra trillion or two required, as not doing so guarantees not only the midterms, but the 2012 election as well, will be contested amidst depression-like conditions.

   I don’t see how cap-and-trade …would suffer during an interregnum of sniping at the bank bailout;

   I think Matt’s point is that if bank bailout plan doesn’t work well, the economy will remain weaker than need be for a longer time period than need be. Under such a scenario, amassing the votes for a big tax increase — which is what cap and trade is — will be more difficult to find. I’m not particularly pleased with what I read is going to be the administration’s approach (to be unveiled next week):

   http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a5z1.VcMZHBM&refer=home

   There’s no talk of nationalization. Still, if they remove the toxic assets from the balance sheets of the biggest banks — and they do it quickly — in theory said banks should be in a position to start lending again. Also, although I’ve been a fan of the nationalization concept because it sounds more decisive, it’s not clear to me that the “purchase toxic asset approach” will necessarily be a vastly inferior option for taxpayers: presumably toxic assets can be sold once they’re no longer toxic just as equity can be sold.

8. Jeffrey Davis Says:
   March 21st, 2009 at 12:37 pm

   cap-and-trade isn’t a tax increase. It’s a change in market pressures.

9. Jasper Says:
   March 21st, 2009 at 12:50 pm

   cap-and-trade isn’t a tax increase. It’s a change in market pressures.

   Not sure I follow you. The administration itself is counting on cap-and-trade revenues for a non-trivial portion of the future revenues it says are needed for spending increases and deficit reduction. Mind you, being a big gummint loving, public-debt hating liberal, I think that’s all for the good. But I don’t see how it’s not a tax increase unless the permits are given away (that’s obviously a possibility given the politics involved, but I’m fervently hoping this outcome will be averted).

10. Ex Boyfriend Says:
    April 8th, 2009 at 7:10 pm

    This topic is quite hot in the net at the moment. What do you pay attention to while choosing what to write ?

11. Vince Delmonte Says:
    April 15th, 2009 at 5:07 am

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