Whatever It Takes

Pethokoukis sizes up Obama's economic team:

These guys are not Marxists, protectionists, or believers in a return to 90 percent marginal tax rates. They are believers in free trade bolstered by an expanded government safey net for workers, increased government spending on infrastructure (green and transportation) and education to increase growth and reduce income inequality, and higher taxes (though certainly less than a 70 percent top income tax rate) to help fund it all. But will they support a) the nationalization of our banking system or b) a pricey homeowners bailout? My guess is that they will recommend doing, to use the words of Obama, "whatever it takes" to keep us out of a depression. Other than cut taxes on capital or business of higher incomes.

I'd say that's where the overwhelming majority of Americans now are. They key is to escape the worst of a recession while allowing the downturn to do what needs to be done: deleverage America from the fiscal insanity of the Bush years, private and public.