NYT editorial: Debating the Economy

Americans are deeply worried about the economy and their jobs — and about whether their elected representatives in Washington have a real plan for digging out of this mess. They are right to be worried. But this week, at least, voters were given a clear choice about the direction the country can take in November and beyond.

President Obama — who took too long to engage this debate — gave two sensible and, finally, passionate speeches. He said that to create jobs and stabilize the economy, the federal government will have to help businesses invest more, and it will have to spend some more, for a while longer. And he said that the country will never be able to wrestle down the deficit if Congress gives in to Republican demands to extend $700 billion in unjustified and unaffordable tax breaks for the wealthy.

The speeches were a pointed rebuttal to Representative John Boehner, the House Republican leader, who has spearheaded his party’s implacable opposition. In a speech in Ohio last month, billed as the definitive Republican position on the economy, he declared that “the prospect of higher taxes, stricter rules and more regulations” was choking recovery.

The president was exactly right when he said that Mr. Boehner’s proposals were nothing more than a return to the past decade of economic mismanagement; the same policies that helped turn budget surpluses into crippling deficits nearly destroyed the financial system and cast millions of Americans into long-term joblessness.

(More here.)

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