Telling the economic story right, and left

Economist Robert Reich talks about the economic story that President Obama is telling, and the one he should be telling instead, at his blog in The Big Economic Story, and Why Obama Isn't Telling It 12/01/2010.

As he sees it, the Republican narrative is, "Big government, bureaucrats, and the cultural and intellectual elites who back them" are responsible for our current economic troubles, aka, a big ole depression.

The Democratic narrative and the one that Obama should be using is, "Big business, Wall Street, and the powerful and privileged who represent them" are the causes of the problems.

He notes that like all popular political narratives, those are oversimplified. In economist's terms, "In reality, the lousy economy is due to insufficient demand – the result of the nation’s almost unprecedented concentration of income at the top."

By such things as "his deficit commission, his freeze on federal pay, his freeze on discretionary spending, and his waivering on extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich", Obama reinforces the Republican narrative, "because in the absence of an alternative narrative the Republican story is the only one the public hears."

I hope the President can be more of a Democratic leader than he's been so far in the post-election period this year.

Tags: barack obama, us economy

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