Columbia Economists Embody National Debate

I have talked about Glenn Hubbard here and how, in the event of a Romney win in November, he could become the most important economist in America, and perhaps set an economic policy course that leads America out of the Obama wilderness.  Two maybes.  Today, Bloomberg has a nice little "clash of visions" type story contrasting Hubbard and his role in the Romney campaign with Columbia colleague and catch-all-liberal-go-to-Nobelist-who-is-not-Paul Krugman, Joe Stiglitz.

The article isn't earth-shattering, just more campaign fodder with a different twist, but it gives me the opportunity to mention once again that blame for the failed $800 billion stimulus of 2009 ought to be, but isn't, placed on the head of one Joe Stiglitz.  Christy Romer, Larry Summers and others take the heat (when any heat is apply, which it rarely is) for the disastrous at best/ineffective at worst stimulus, but more than anybody the stimulus was a reflection of Stiglitz's thinking.  He was Mr. Aid to States.  He went around during 2008 and 2009 talking about how we desperately needed to give massive federal aid to states to spur the economy.  And we did.  And it did nothing.  States pocketed the money and kept doing what they were doing.  Essentially, we federalized states' profligacy.  Has that enabled California to pull out of its fiscal nose dive, allowed Illinois to get a handle on its fiscal nightmare or obviated the need for the pain reforms that states are now making?  No.  None of it.  And it did nothing for economic growth.  The states that were booming are still booming and the states that were languishing are still languishing. 

So what the article should say, if it were to be really informative, is that we've had Stiglitzian economic policy for years now under Obama.  Despite that Nobel prize, it's yielded pretty miserable results.  Maybe we ought to give an alternate approach, Hubbard's approach, a chance.  We just may.