The Real Obama?

James Pethokoukis--who I really ought to read more of--points out that Obama, despite some nods to the right, isn't becoming the next Reagan, or even the next Bill Clinton. His mega-ultra-billion stimulus package might be heavy on the tax cuts, but that doesn't mean he's embraced the supply-side gospel. Writes Pethokoukis:

Centrist economic advisers such as Lawrence Summers, Peter Orszag, Austan Goolsbee, and Christina Romer have actually looked at the data and come to a different conclusion from the folks on Capitol Hill: 1) Infrastructure spending doesn't work fast enough to help an economy in freefall. Indeed, Orszag has called a "green" stimulus approach "totally impractical"; 2) there just aren't enough "shovel ready" projects out there. In a report on the Obama plan, advisers Jared Bernstein and Romer point out that there "is a limit on how much government investment can be carried out efficiently in a short time frame, and because tax cuts ... can be implemented quickly, they are crucial elements of any package aimed at easing economic distress quickly"; and 3) tax cuts boost growth. Romer has produced research that found "tax cuts have very large and persistent positive output effects" of roughly $3 in GDP growth for every $1 of tax cuts.

Pragmatism, pragmatism, pragmatism. That's going to be the rallying cry of the Obama administration for the next few months. Expect to hear it from all their surrogates on the Sunday shows.

"Obama's not interested in ideology; he just wants to fix the economy!"
"We're shooting for the most pragmatic solution possible."
"Right now, the important thing is to do what works."

Words like "good government," "efficiency," and "technocracy" are going to be on everyone's lips. And if that pragmatism sometimes comes wearing a Reagan mask, liberals shouldn't get too discouraged, nor conservatives too enthused. Obama is a liberal. End of story. He's just more flexible than your average left-winger.