Wake Up and Smell the History

Paul Krugman is complaining that the economic stimulus package was not large enough.

Dr. Krugman is a talented economist, no doubt, and I suspect he is right about all he says. I do enjoy his comments that the party of Hoover is engaging in "deep voodoo." But I think he is wrong in some of his critique.

One thing he misses is that politics is the art of the possible or, as John Varley has put it, you cannot invent the railroad until it is time to invent the railroad. Politicians cannot get too far ahead of their times or they will not get anything accomplished. You can find examples throughout history. President Roosevelt (Teddy) thought the Panama Canal was a fine idea, but it had been thought of well over a century before. The French tried to build a canal and failed. Improvements in construction equipment, better methods of removing the dug spoil and, most importantly, control of mosquitos made it possible to build the Panama Canal a century ago.

His cousin, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, probably thought that the U.S. needed to enter World War II far earlier than it did, but the isolationism of the Hooverites made that impossible. Even with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. would not have gone to war with Germany without the German declaration of war on December 11, 1941. (That was a rather curious move as Japan did not declare war on the Soviet Union after Germany had attacked in June, 1941, nor did Japan declare war against the USSR after Germany declared war on the USA.)

Some politicians get out in front and escape by the skin of their teeth. President Truman's order to desegregate the amed forces in 1948 almost cost him the election. Some politicians make a bold move and it costs their party dearly; President Johnson's push for civil rights legislation cost his party the South for the next two generations, paving the way for presidents who virtually destroyed the ability of the Federal government to do little more than drop bombs on people. Please do not misunderstand me, the civil rights acts may have kept this nation from flying apart in the 1960s, but the backlash exacted its own cost.

President Obama can only get so far out in front of the people and I suspect that he knows that far better than either I or Dr. Krugman.