TV Fiscal Stimulus Debate Reveals Some Agreement

PBS Newshour hosted a live TV debate between Mark Zandi and me yesterday on the question of whether government interventions helped or hurt the economy. The show highlighted a paper by Alan Blinder and Zandi about which I posted comments on this blog yesterday. Several people who watched the show commented on how Zandi agreed with me on two important issues: (1) that the on-again off-again bailout policies in 2008 helped bring about the panic that year and (2) that holding off on any tax rate increases next year would be a stimulus to economic growth. Of course we disagreed about other things.