Republicans, soon to take the House, are already talking about spending cuts -- Social Security, Medicare? -- that would grossly offset any positive effects from the tax cut deal. How effectively will Obama be able to oppose these demands after he himself has embraced the rhetoric of belt-tightening? It's one thing to make deals to advance your goals; it's quite another to set the country up for right-wing victories.

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Paul Krugman recently  pointed out that free-market fundamentalists have been wrong about everything -- yet quite incredibly they now dominate the American political scene more thoroughly than ever!  

But how did this happen?   Clinton raised taxes and presided over spectacular job growth;   the Bush who followed him cut taxes and presided over anemic growth (even before our economic crisis) -- so howinhell did we end up with bipartisan agreement on even more tax cuts?!

The answer from the right is that the economic failures of the Obama administration show that "big-government policies" don't work.   (But what "big-government" policies could those possibly be?!)

The fact is that the Obama stimulus -- which itself was almost 40% tax cuts -- was far too cautious, and far too small, to turn the economy around.   And that's not 20-20 hindsight:   many economists, including Krugman, warned from the beginning that the plan was grossly inadequate.   (Obama asked for a stimulus that was four times larger than the one Congress granted him.)   So what kind of "big government policy" was this?   (The allegation is ridiculous.)

As Krugman pointed out:   A policy under which government employment actually fell, under which government spending on goods and services grew more slowly than during the Bush years, hardly constitutes a test of Keynesian economics!

Granted that in the face of Congressional skepticism about government, it wasn't possible for President Obama to get more.   But even if that's true, it only demonstrates the continuing hold of a failed doctrine over our politics.  

It's also worth pointing out that everything the right said about why Obamanomics would fail was wrong.   Two examples:  

• For two years we've been warned that government borrowing would send interest rates sky-high;   in fact, rates have stayed consistently low by historical standards.  
• For two years we've been warned that inflation, even hyperinflation, was just around the corner;   instead, disinflation (deflation) has continued, albeit around a comparatively small core of inflation -- inflation that is now at a half-century low.  

So why are we letting ourselves be ruled by what can only be called "zombie economics"?!  (Reaganomics has been thoroughly discredited -- it's essentially dead -- yet in some sense it still rules American politics.)

Part of the answer, surely, is that people who should have been trying to slay zombie ideas have tried to compromise with them instead.   And this is especially true of the president.  

People tend to forget that Ronald Reagan often gave ground on policy substance -- most notably, he ended up enacting multiple tax increases.   But he never, ever, wavered on ideas;   he never backed down from the position that his ideology was right and his opponents were wrong.  

President Obama, by contrast, has consistently tried to reach across the aisle by lending cover to right-wing myths.   He praised Reagan for restoring American dynamism -- and when was the last time you heard a Republican praising F.D.R.?    Obama even adopted G.O.P. rhetoric about the need for the government to tighten its belt, even in the face of recession.   He went so far as   to offer (symbolic) freezes on spending and federal wages, for godsake.  

Quite incredibly, however, none of this stopped the right from denouncing him as a socialist!   And it helped empower bad ideas, zombie ideas, in ways that did immediate harm.  

Right now Mr. Obama is hailing the tax-cut deal as "a boost to the economy," but Republicans, soon to take control of the House, are already talking about spending cuts -- Social Security, Medicare? -- that would offset any positive effects from the tax cut deal.   And how effectively will Obama be able to oppose these demands of theirs, after he himself has embraced the rhetoric of belt-tightening?

It's one thing to make deals to advance your goals;   it's quite another to open the door to zombie ideas.   When you do that, the zombies end up eating your brain -- and quite possibly your economy too.  

Authors Bio:

Several years after receiving my M.A. in social science (interdisciplinary studies) I was an instructor at S.F. State University for a year, but then went back to designing automated machinery, and then tech writing, in Silicon Valley. I've always been more interested in political economics and what's going on behind the scenes in politics, than in mechanical engineering, and because of that I've rarely worked more than 8 months a year, devoting much of the rest of the year to reading and writing about that which interests me most.