THE DEFICIT-REDUCTION DEBATE. To follow up briefly on Ezra's post, whereas Brad DeLong's friend refers to Bob Kuttner "trashing Democrats" rather than "arguing about the future of a party" or "thinking about policies" or "discussing issues," his piece on Robert Rubin does take on (among others) the substantive issue of balanced budgets, their role in the '90s boom, and their primacy as a progressive economic goal. (It's in the section starting with the line, "As we were going to press ... ") Kuttner refers to research done by Dean Baker, among others, as well as arguments made by Joseph Stiglitz offering skepticism about the role of deficit reduction in the '90s boom. This was a debate taken up somewhat in 2004 in DeLong and Jeff Faux's parallel assessments of Rubin for the Prospect, and it's a debate we'll likely be taking up again on TAP Online soon.
--Sam Rosenfeld
