Climate change and dependence on foreign oil are problems that won't go away on their own. Tabling plans to deal with them doesn't make it easier for companies to plan and invest; it makes it harder.

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

Recent research suggests that New Deal programs may actually have had their primary impact on the economy by influencing consumer and business expectations of future growth and inflation.

Fewer people working means permanently lower tax revenues.

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.

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.