Inside the box?

Ben Stein:

"In what sense is he “change you can believe in”? How is he part of the solution, not part of the problem? I know he is a protégé of Robert E. Rubin. But isn’t Mr. Rubin himself the essence of the Washington-New York finance axis of power? He was a fine Treasury secretary while the tech boom made all things new, but Citigroup hasn’t exactly thrived during his tenure. Again, where is the change?

It’s not just Mr. Obama’s personnel choices that bear watching, but what he’s said about his economic programs. Public works seem to be the centerpiece of his effort to jolt the economy back into high gear. But recall the history of national attempts to “jolt” economies this way. In a word, their success is limited.

New Deal programs like the Works Progress Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps were highly visible but accomplished little on a macro scale. Yes, they employed hundreds of thousands, and that was great. They built post offices and bridges. But they created friction with unions because they paid sub-union wages.

Will the new administration be prepared to require that public works employees be union members? If so, of what union?"