Step Aside for Powell and Pelosi.by Paul Krugman
'Republicans, it turns out, can’t do economic policy.
America’s catastrophically inadequate response to the coronavirus can be attributed largely to bad short-term decisions by one man. And I do mean short-term: At every stage, Donald Trump minimized the threat and blocked helpful action because he wanted to look good for the next news cycle or two, ignoring and intimidating anyone who tried to give him good advice.
But here’s the thing: Even if he weren’t so irresponsibly self-centered, he has denuded the government of people who could be giving good advice in the first place.
Trump disbanded the National Security Council’s pandemic response team in 2018, although he now, with his characteristic refusal to accept responsibility for anything, says that he knew nothing about it. And he has in general staffed his administration with obsequious toadies who never tell him anything he doesn’t want to hear.
What’s now becoming clear is that when it comes to dealing with the economic fallout from Covid-19, the situation may be even worse. There are still some competent professionals holding senior positions at federal health agencies, who could give Trump good advice if he were willing to listen. But serious economic thinking has effectively been banned from this administration, if not the whole Republican Party. As far as I can tell, the Trump team is utterly incapable of formulating a coherent response to the gathering economic crisis.
As a result, there are only two potential loci of intelligent economic policymaking left in Washington. One is the Federal Reserve; the other is the congressional Democratic leadership. At this point, in other words, it’s pretty much up to Jay Powell, the Fed chairman, and Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House; the question is whether Trump and Senate Republicans will let them save the economy.
Powell, of course, slashed interest rates and announced a large asset-buying program on Sunday. He was right to do so. But it’s painfully obvious that these moves won’t be sufficient, indeed will probably do little to stop the economy’s tailspin. Remember, in 2007-8 the Fed cut rates five times as much as it did Sunday, and it still wasn’t able to prevent the worst slump since the Great Depression.'
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/opinion/pelosi-powell-coronavirus.html?
