You see how the Obama program is such a sorry testimony to the Democratic-Keynesian tradition. First he deficit spent, and big—and got no recovery. Now the poor man has to legislate tax increases, in that the lack of recovery means that no one is getting thrown into higher tax brackets on account of recovery-induced higher incomes. And given all the phase-outs for even modestly higher incomes, there’s plenty of progressivity in the tax code as it is.

Obama has got to be the most hapless Keynesian ever.

In the Keynesian period, you never had to be so groveling as to ask for/demand tax increases to pay for your deficits. The recovery that came would bring tax increases and wipe out the debt. Oops, Obama’s $5 trillion in deficits didn’t produce a recovery in the first place.