The very first email I got [was] from a women's group saying 'We don't want this stimulus package to just create jobs for burly men.'

You care about the deficit because it allows you to do things you need to do to help people who are suffering.

Tax increases appear to have a very large sustained and highly significant negative impact on output.

I think something that forces financial institutions to write down underwater mortgages, I think, would be a sensible thing to do.

AS an economic historian, I appreciate what manufacturing has contributed to the United States. It was the engine of growth that allowed us to win two world wars and provided millions of families with a ticket to the middle class. But public policy needs to go beyond sentiment and history.

Making labor less expensive helps firms hire people.

If increasing income equality is the goal, it might be wiser to put money into infrastructure than to subsidize manufacturing. Construction also pays good wages, but with lower educational requirements. And America's infrastructure needs are enormous.