Paul Krugman: Cleaning Up the Economy

Bill Clinton’s speech at the Democratic National Convention was a remarkable combination of pretty serious wonkishness — has there ever been a convention speech with that much policy detail? — and memorable zingers. Perhaps the best of those zingers was his sarcastic summary of the Republican case for denying President Obama re-election: “We left him a total mess. He hasn’t cleaned it up fast enough. So fire him and put us back in.”

Great line. But is the mess really getting cleaned up?

The answer, I would argue, is yes. The next four years are likely to be much better than the last four years — unless misguided policies create another mess.