CT Blue

Back in 2008 Paul Krugman put off a lot of liberals by being rather cool toward Obama; it seemed pretty clear he preferred Hillary. Lately, however, he's been one of Obama's biggest cheerleaders. Consider today's column in which he lauds Obama for proposing a non austere budget:

On Monday, President Obama will call for a significant increase in spending, reversing the harsh cuts of the past few years. He won’t get all he’s asking for, but it’s a move in the right direction. And it also marks a welcome shift in the discourse. Maybe Washington is starting to get over its narrow-minded, irresponsible obsession with long-run problems and will finally take on the hard issue of short-run gratification instead
…
It goes without saying that Mr. Obama’s fiscal proposals, like everything he does, will be attacked by Republicans. He’s also, however, sure to face criticism from self-proclaimed centrists accusing him of irresponsibly abandoning the fight against long-term budget deficits.

So it’s important to understand who’s really irresponsible here. In today’s economic and political environment, long-termism is a cop-out, a dodge, a way to avoid sticking your neck out. And it’s refreshing to see signs that Mr. Obama is willing to break with the long-termers and focus on the here and now.

All well and good, but this “good” budget just puts one of Obama's major failings into stark relief. We tend to forget that when he was elected, had he and the Democrats played hardball, particularly with the budget (Can you say “reconciliation”? Republicans can.) he could have gotten almost anything he wanted. Now, maybe the Democrats would have wussed out on him (they do tend to do that), but we'll never know, because he spent the entire time he had large majorities in both houses Desperately Seeking Susan's vote, and Olympia's, as well as the votes of the other non-existent “moderate” Republicans.

He could likely have gotten better than he got back then; he will get nothing now, so his proposed budget is nothing more than a symbolic gesture that will do him and his party no good. It's one thing to come out for things people understand (e.g., free college tuition); it's another to embrace this or that economic theory that people don't understand. Had he passed a free-spending budget in 2009 he would have reaped rewards not because what he was doing sounded good, but because it would have worked; the economy would have done far better, and he could have (rightfully, in that case) claimed credit. As it was, the good that his insufficient stimulus (but he got Susan's vote!) did was like the pony in all that horseshit; it was there somewhere but it was awfully hard for anyone but an economist to find.