Clive Crook May Be A Leading Indicator

Over at FT.com, my friend Clive Crook has a well written piece on the fiscal stimulus and the debate over it success and failure.

The key to the post is its focus toward the end on the aftermath of the stimulus -- the deficits and debt that will be left when the economy has recovered.

This is not a new topic, of course. Congressional Republicans have been raising it for months as a reason not to like what the Obama administration proposed and Congress adopted.

But Clive's post is not a recital of the GOP talking points on the stimulus. The fact that he devotes about 40 percent of his thinking and writing to the next rather than the current issue is significant.  Clive is an intellectual leader and this is the kind of subtle revision in the public debate that often indicates the situation has changed and its time for the discussion to move on.

I disagree with a number of things in the piece, such as Clive's assertion that the stimulus was of "stunning scale" and his psychoanalysis of what was included in the stimulus legislation ("Democrats preferred public spending because they wanted to widen government’s role and repudiate the Republicans’ instinct to cut taxes regardless of the circumstances").

But those items seemed to be provided more for color and context.  If the debate has started to change because Clive and others now see the need to begin to focus elsewhere, we may have something as important as any economic indicator.

(Note to Clive: How about a new head shot that shows you smiling?)