The Obama administration has had a lot to deal with in its first few months in office. Unfortunately, like the Bush administration before it, the Obama team appears to be trying to re-create the bubbly financial conditions that led to disaster. This tack is not likely to succeed, and it is displacing policies that might actually prevent a recurrence of the Great Depression. Even if the $23.7 trillion the federal government has so far allocated in the form of spending, lending, and guarantees does preserve the status quo, the authors of this brief believe it will merely set the stage for another—bigger—financial crisis a few years down the road. They recommend an abrupt change of course, and the pursuit of a more radical policy agenda.

Publication(s):
Public Policy Brief Highlights No. 105A, 2009

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