Not just stimulus, but big government

There are three cases to be made for big government, says Richard Parker, in this essay: short-term intervention to save Wall Street, medium-term mainly to rebuild infrastructure, and long-term to restore stability and spread opportunity. This latter option, though, is hardly ever discussed. Until now. It’s the subject of The Case for Big Government by Jeff Madrick. He argues for an annual $400 billion increase in Washington’s budget, to be spent on stuff like child care and health, which would be roughly equal to making Barak Obama’s original stimulus package part of normal government spending envelope.

The New York Review of Books