Friday, April 13, 2012

Who Said This?

Name the politician who said this:
"The second big problem we have you can see if you look at the front page of USA Today today, which shows a traditional analysis, yesterday's analysis—of the business section—of the economic program. It basically says, "Oh, it will bring unemployment down a little and it will increase economic growth a little if we do this, but not all that much." Now, why is that? That's because traditional economic analysis says that the only way the Government can ever help the economy grow is by spending more money and taxing less. In other words, traditional Keynesian economies: Run a bigger deficit. But we can't do that. The deficit's already so big, I can't run the risk to the long-term stability of this country by going in and doing that."
No Googling!

Secondary question: who was the first president to mention John Maynard Keynes, or use the word 'Keynesian' in a recorded speech or document?

A hint: neither of these is President Obama.

8 comments:

Emily Grace said...

1) Clinton?
2) No clue.

DRDR said...

The quote is definitely early 90s Clinton. Stiglitz, who was on the CEA the whole first term, is always defensive about why deficit reduction made sense at the time, while advocating Keynesian policies today. Long-term rates were much higher in the early 1990s than they are today. It was particularly important to cut deficits in order to increase the value of long-term bonds on banks' books and to stimulate private sector lending, because banks were struggling to recover from the S&L mess.

Macro Guy said...

You guys are smart & well-informed! Indeed: this was Clinton in 1993.

My more obscure bonus question remains...

Anonymous said...

Hmm, I'm going to guess LBJ for the bonus question.

bpf said...

Ronald Reagan

Carol Douglas said...

1.) William Jefferson Clinton, but that's old news.

2.) FDR? (I really don't know.)

Macro Guy said...

BPF was correct with Ronald Reagan - according to UCSB's American Presidency Project (http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php#axzz1rvovUWv3)

Richard Nixon was famous for saying, "We're all Keynesians now." But according to Wikipedia, he actually said, "I am now a Keynesian in economics" in a 1971 NY Times article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_are_all_Keynesians_now

bpf said...

hahaha victory!! random guess for the win :)