The Great Battle of 2009

What will be the top priority for the Obama administration at the beginning of 2009? Enacting health care for all? Pursuing energy independence? Rewriting NAFTA?

None of those (I’m sorry to report).

The great opening battle—the one we absolutely have to win—is enactment of an economic recovery program of unprecedented size and scope. Without this, our economy will fall into a deep recession, putting all of our progressive goals in serious jeopardy.

This week's lame-duck Congress will do little or nothing to address the problem. January will find us facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Unemployment, foreclosures and bank failures are already going through the roof. The stock market, home values and consumer confidence are already going through the floor. And things will get worse.

Here’s the politically painful truth: The only way to save our economy is to commence a massive increase in federal spending—requiring as much as $1 trillion in deficit spending over the next two years.

Leading economists like Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz, Dean Baker—and even the great majority of economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal—know that economic recovery will be expensive. But Americans don’t even know this issue is coming because it went unmentioned during the election campaign. That’s a political problem because deficit spending is widely unpopular.

Americans assume that deficits are bad and balanced budgets are good. One post-election poll found that 61 percent say “reducing the federal budget deficit” should be a “top priority” for the new president, and another 31 percent say it should be “important.” But in a severe recession, that’s bad economic policy. In fact, trying to balance the budget during a recession is the recipe for depression—it was Herbert Hoover’s recipe, to be precise.

Put in the context of economic recovery, Americans remain sharply divided about federal spending. A post-election poll sponsored by Campaign for America’s Future asked voters if they were “more worried that we will fail to make the investments we need to create jobs and strengthen the economy” or “more worried that we will go too far in increasing government spending and will end up raising taxes to pay for it.” The first statement won agreement from 49 percent; 48 percent agreed with the second. So progressives have work to do.

How do we begin to prepare Americans to support us in the coming battle?

First, keep up a steady drumbeat for an Obama “economic recovery program.” The same CAF poll found that most voters support the general idea.

Second, explain that the recovery program will help “make health insurance affordable and accessible to all Americans,” “end dependence on foreign oil,” and “make job-creating investments in America’s aging roads and transportation systems”—specific goals that are widely popular.

Third, don’t accept the argument that our economic recovery plan is too costly. Even if we spend $500 billion per year, it will still be far less than the cost of letting the U.S. economy plummet into a years-long, severe recession.

Finally, explain to people worried about the politics that while “deficit spending” is unpopular, it’s not a make-or-break voting issue. Voters didn’t punish Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush for their massive deficit spending, and voters didn’t reward Al Gore for the Clinton-Gore Administration’s success in balancing the federal budget.

Bottom line: Barack Obama needs your help. If progressives spend the next nine weeks building support for a robust economic recovery plan, the next president will have a much easier time enacting his top priority legislation.

Tomorrow, the Campaign for America's Future will kick off the conversation with a conference on "Real Investment in America" at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. For more about economic recovery and public investments, see our new Institute for America's Future economy webpage.

The writer is a Senior Fellow at Campaign for America’s Future and author of the recent book, Framing the Future: How Progressive Values Can Win Elections and Influence People.