"A Transparently Cynical Policy Gesture"
I was trying to think of a succinct way to respond to Obama's plans to freeze federal pay. This expresses my sentiment fairly well:
Freeze Frame: Yep, that’s exactly what we needed: a transparently cynical policy gesture, trivial in scale but misguided in direction, and in effect conceding that your bitter political opponents have the right idea.
Update: I also like pgl's characterization of the policy:
This strikes me as short-term fiscal restraint but not a really serious attempt to getting the long-term fiscal house in order. In other words precisely the opposite of what we should be doing while in a very depressed economy.
Posted by Mark Thoma on Monday, November 29, 2010 at 12:47 PM in Economics, Politics |
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