He Warned Us

Paul Krugman on how President Obama hedged his bets on the stimulus and now the Republicans are going all in early in the poker game to fill the void where White House boldness should have been:

It’s only June, but Republicans are already claiming that the Obama economic plan has failed. (Yes, that’s insane — hardly any of the money has flowed to the economy yet — but this was predictable.) Meanwhile, unemployment is already above 9 percent. And the green shoots are looking browner by the week, especially on the jobs front: new claims for unemployment insurance are stubbornly running at more than 600,000 a week, far above the 350,000 or so that would be consistent with a stable unemployment rate.

We really do need a bigger stimulus. But it’s going to be hard slogging.