In today's column, Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman has much praise for the speech by President Obama this week on economic inequality.
But the president now seems to accept progressive arguments that education is at best one of a number of concerns, that America’s growing class inequality largely reflects political choices, like the failure to raise the minimum wage along with inflation and productivity.
And because the president was willing to assign much of the blame for rising inequality to bad policy, he was also more forthcoming than in the past about ways to change the nation’s trajectory, including a rise in the minimum wage, restoring labor’s bargaining power, and strengthening, not weakening, the safety net.
NY Times, Paul Krugman, "Obama Gets Real"
Krugman also has a message to those who say "it's just talk," and President Obama cannot or will not do anything anyway:
ideas matter, even if they can’t be turned into legislation overnight. The wrong turn we’ve taken in economic policy — our obsession with debt and “entitlements,” when we should have been focused on jobs and opportunity — was, of course, driven in part by the power of wealthy vested interests. But it wasn’t just raw power. The fiscal scolds also benefited from a sort of ideological monopoly: for several years you just weren’t considered serious in Washington unless you worshipped at the altar of Simpson and Bowles.
Now, however, we have the president of the United States breaking ranks, finally sounding like the progressive many of his supporters thought they were backing in 2008. This is going to change the discourse — and, eventually, I believe, actual policy.
So don’t believe the cynics. This was an important speech by a president who can still make a very big difference.
NY Times, Paul Krugman, "Obama Gets Real"
A very good column. Paul Krugman has been a consistent critic of some economic policies of President Obama while also supporting him overall against Republicans.
Ideas matter. It's time to seize the narrative.