Who Said What?
Both William Kristol and Paul Krugman weighed in on the Administration’s Trillion Dollar game plan in today’s New York Times. Can you connect the dots from opinion to opinionator?
Here’s K-1:
Everyone seems to agree on the need for a big and comprehensive plan, and that the markets have to have some confidence that help is on the way. Funds need to be supplied, trading markets need to be stabilized, solvent institutions needs to be protected, and insolvent institutions need to be put on the path to a deliberate liquidation or reorganization.
But is the administration’s proposal the right way to do this? It would enable the Treasury, without Congressionally approved guidelines as to pricing or procedure, to purchase hundreds of billions of dollars of financial assets, and hire private firms to manage and sell them, presumably at their discretion There are no provisions for — or even promises of — disclosure, accountability or transparency. Surely Congress can at least ask some hard questions about such an open-ended commitment.
And here’s K-2:
I’m aware that Congress is under enormous pressure to agree to the Paulson plan in the next few days, with at most a few modifications that make it slightly less bad. Basically, after having spent a year and a half telling everyone that things were under control, the Bush administration says that the sky is falling, and that to save the world we have to do exactly what it says now now now.
But I’d urge Congress to pause for a minute, take a deep breath, and try to seriously rework the structure of the plan, making it a plan that addresses the real problem. Don’t let yourself be railroaded — if this plan goes through in anything like its current form, we’ll all be very sorry in the not-too-distant future.
You know it’s really serious when K and K, even temporarily, start to sound alike.



Yes. When it comes to the economy, everyone is a liberal now.
I find the comments of these 3 economists in today’s Times to be quite helpful in painting a clear picture of issues and possible solutions:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/business/22economists.html?_r=1&ref=business&oref=slogin
It seems to me the most important political point Mr. Kristol makes is whether or not McCain will act rashly. He certainly did in the choice of his v.p. running mate. Both choices should disqualify him from the presidency.
It seems to me the major point Mr. Krugman makes is that Paulson is asking for power which cannot be reviewed by the Congress or anyone else. What an extraordinarily arrogant man — to assume that he alone can resolve the crisis.. He sounds rather mad to me.